Even at fifty, Colonel Stockton looked like a chained-up tornado. He was called "Colonel" because he could command a regiment in hell. He raised cattle in a valley of about two hundred square miles and ran it like a trap. It was easy enough to get in, but hard as the devil to get out.
Into the Colonel's realm rode Smiling Charlie Lamb, tall and handsome, with a price on his head. The reward made him a wanted man. His skills with his fists and his gun were awesome but they paled beside his skill at romancing. Many young women wanted him, too.
Of the thousand uses the Colonel could have found for Charlie, his romantic ability was just what the Colonel needed to break up a romance that interfered with his plans. But Olivia, the Colonel's daughter, also had a mind of her own and knew how to keep it in step with her heart.
Smiling Charlie could do whatever he wanted, and Colonel Stockton was used to getting anything he wanted. When they collided, they changed everything.
Max Brand is the pseudonym of Frederick Faust (1892–1944), who published more than three hundred Western novels. Brand's bright, vigorous prose has defined the West for thousand of readers. John Cawelti, Russel G. Nye, and other scholars of the western view his work as key in the development of the genre. Smiling Charlie was first published in 1927.
