Steve Yeager

Steve Yeager, a broke young Arizona cowboy with only a dollar in his pocket and no ranch work to return to, keeps his spirits alive with songs and stubborn humor as the old cattle West disappears beneath farms, fences, and forest reserves. Hungry but unbowed, he rides into an unexpected future when he mistakes a staged movie scene for a real attack, knocks down one man in defense of the "victim," and discovers he has crashed a film shoot. His embarrassment quickly turns to opportunity when the company hires him as a stunt rider, setting him on a path where cowboy skill and impulsive courage can finally pay. At the boardinghouse, Steve's bruises from a fight with Chad Harrison make him the center of attention, while Daisy Ellington adds worldly wit and warns that Harrison is engaged to Ruth Seymour and has a dangerous reputation. A tender moment with Ruth is shattered by a false dying message Harrison has used to lure her away, and Steve takes charge, organizing a mounted pursuit across the night desert. Tracking the kidnappers toward Lone Tree Spring and Pasquale's camp, he confronts Harrison at gunpoint as the story moves between humor, romance, danger, and the hard-edged frontier world of early film-making and Western adventure. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.