Description: Old Puma had been working for the Yellowstone Outfit for seven years and was a good hand with a horse or a rope. As winter sets in, Puma is mysteriously shot while riding the Yellowstone range. But he doesn't know why.
Brief description: Lauran Paine was born in Duluth, Minnesota, a descendant of the Revolutionary War patriot and author, Thomas Paine. His family moved to California, where he spent years in the livestock trade and rodeos, and where he learned from many old-timers how different the Old West was from the way movies portrayed it. After serving in the Navy in World War II, he began writing for Western pulp magazines. By 1948, he was writing full-time. He wrote more than a thousand books under his own name and pseudonyms, including hundreds of Westerns as well as romance, science fiction, and mystery novels. His books were adapted twice into films: LAW MAN as the 1957 movie THE QUIET GUN, and the novel originally titled THE OPEN RANGE MEN as 2003's OPEN RANGE, starring Kevin Costner, Robert Duval, and Annette Benning.