Ride the Dark Trail: The Sacketts: A Novel [Paperback]

InRide the Dark Trail,Louis L’Amour tells the story of Logan Sackett, a cynical drifter who changes his ways to help a widow keep her land.

Logan Sackett is wild and rootless, riding west in search of easy living. Then he meets Emily Talon, a fiery old widow who is even wilder than he is. Tall and lean, Em is determined to defend herself against the jealous locals who are trying to take her home. Logan doesn’t want to get involved—until he finds out that Em was born a Sackett. Em is bucking overwhelming odds, but Logan won’t let her stand alone. For even the rebellious drifter knows that part of being a Sackett is backing up your family when they need you.Our foremost storyteller of the American West,Louis L’Amourhas thrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and woman who settled the frontier. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print around the world.Chapter One


The old house stood on the crest of a knoll and it was three hundred yards to the main gate. No shrubbery or trees obscured the view, nor was there any cover for a half mile beyond.

The house was old, weather-beaten, wind-harried, and long unpainted. By night no light shone from any window, and by day no movement could be seen, but the watchers from the hill a half mile away were not fooled.

"She's there, all right. You lay a hand on that gate and you'll damned soon know she's there. She's setting up there in that old house and she can shoot."

Behind the house, the mountains lifted abruptly, steep, ragged slopes broken by ledges and dikes, covered with rough growth and dead-fall timber. Directly behind the house, only the top spread of its walls visible, lay the mouth of a canyon opening into the mountains beyond.

"Old Man Talon built that house to last, and when he built it, it was the finest house between New Orleans and Frisco. He had tl³'