WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT As much to serve his own ends as to help the authorities Blue Pete went to the aid of the Mounties in rounding up a mysterious cattle rustler who did not shrink even from murder. How, with his characteristic genius for finding trouble, Blue Pete was soon at grips with his old friend Sergeant Mahon; how he saved the Sergeant's life and all but lost his own; and how as a result of his efforts he was himself arrested for murder only to be ultimately vindicated are stirringly told in this grand, hundred-thrills-a-minute yarn. "The most popular cowboy character in fiction," is how Truth describes Blue Pete. "Mr. Allan has the technique of the Wild West at his finger tips"-an opinion which is amply confirmed by this rollicking, swift-moving narrative of the great open spaces.

What this story is about The stranger in town would have been in a bad way had not Blue Pete intervened. Bruiser Salmon, who was dealing out the punishment, didn't take kindly to Pete's action but the 'forty-five' the half-breed nonchalantly fingered commanded obedience. Salmon swore to get even with Blue Pete. But Pete, scarred from a hundred fights, was not the man to be cowed by threats, especially when he heard the stranger's tale of a missing heir and of Salmon's part in a stick-at-nothing plot to gain a fortune. How Blue Pete settled the score and meted out his own kind of justice, is told in this action-paced story of flaying fists and burning bullets.

Few men reckoned on staying up in the Cypress Hills unless they needed a hide-out real bad. So when Blue Pete heard one night a wolf's cry from the hills that no wolf had throated, he figured he'd go on up and see who was hollering and why. And that started Pete on the trigger-taut tracking of the toughest and strangest bunch of bank-busters that had menaced Medicine Hat for quite a while. But Pete discovered too much, and the man who did that in the Cypress Hills usually lasted about as long as a stockyard steer. Another grand, action-paced yarn of the ever popular Blue Pete.

Sergeant Mahon of the Mounted Police is missing; he had been sent to the foothills west of Edmonton where only Indians lived. Blue Pete is asked to search and rescue the Sergeant-if the Indians have done anything to the Mountie then they will all pay with their lives swears the half-breed. "If yuh sent the Mounties after the Sergeant they'd never git him alive," said Blue Pete. "Them Neches 'ud do him in quick, an' thar's a million places to bury him whar nobody'd ever find him. I'm goin' to git him, Inspector. If they've done for him thar'll be so many notches on my guns I'll have to git new ones to hold 'em." This was the prelude to another of Blue Pete's amazing escapades-one which will undoubtedly thrill the many thousands to whom Blue Pete is known as the most popular and colourful cowboy in fiction.

The half-breed Blue Pete and Rance Hewitt were old enemies and Rance was not the man to allow a debt of vengeance to go unpaid. Determined to get even with Pete, he laid a trap to take the half-breed across the border into Rance's own territory. The trick succeeded, and the two men came face to face in the way Rance liked to meet his enemies-he armed with a quirt, and his adversary securely trussed up against any possible reprisal. Pete took his beating with sullen hatred; silently swearing to return blow for blow until Rance cringed for mercy. The unofficial arrival of Mahon of the Mounties speeded the moment of retribution as he and Pete fought their way to freedom. But before they left, Pete levelled the score in a quick and ruthless reckoning.

Blue Pete, in his role of undercover helper of the RCMP, once more sets out to bring justice and retribution to a group of bank-robbers who had held up a bank in Red Deer. Ring-leader of the bandits is Flying Cloud, an Indian with a forked tongue, who tries to outwit the half-breed on his trail and in doing so start a feud between two neighbouring camps. Mountain Stream, a wise chief, sees through Flying Cloud's game, and his friendship for Blue Pete remains unshaken. But Brown Tepee is won over by Flying Cloud's easy promises. He overcomes his fear of the long arm of the Mounties, and joins forces with Flying Cloud. But Blue Pete is more than a match for both of them. Time and again he foils their cunning moves to destroy him and his friends, and finally he is able to defeat them in the very moment of their triumph. Yet even Blue Pete has to learn afresh that he cannot accomplish all he sets out to do without help from Mira, the amazing white woman who married him and shares his wild, untamed life.

Blue Pete, secretly chosen by the Mounted Police to capture an Indian murderer, in his characteristic way picks up the trail and follows it into the mountains. He becomes involved in a bank-robbery that earns him a new and implacable enemy who dogs his path throughout the chase of the murderer-a perilous, unrelenting chase in the depth of winter. Disguised as an Indian, Blue Pete moves from tribe to tribe, helped and hindered by the red men. He faces zero cold, wild animals, and flying bullets, and all the time he must keep secret the task he works at. Finally, he faces a dilemma where duty and instinct struggle for mastery.

This exhilarating Western story describes how Blue Pete-"the most popular cowboy character in fiction"-bested Frenchy Thoreau, a cattle-thief and worse, with oddly chivalrous ideas but a killer as quick-witted as swift on the draw. On the prairies and mountain trails of the Canadian-U.S. border, rife with rustlers' feuds and treacherous bands of outlawed Indians, Blue Pete relentlessly stalked his dangerous quarry. At bay, Thoreau turned and struck with deadly precision, and Blue Pete, out manoeuvred and out-gunned, was jammed in the tightest corner of his rip-roaring career.

A bitter enemy of Blue Pete, Bill Scarway, the murderous fast-shooting outlaw, escapes the Mounties to Medicine Hat-to ride, as "Trigger" Sallows, for the Diamond K outfit. Inspector Barker, determined to get the elusive Scarway, dead or alive, asks Blue Pete to help capture him. Blue Pete-his own private score to settle with Scarway-refuses, though he knows that killing and cattle-rustling inevitably follow the outlaw's trail. In the great spring round-up near the Cypress Hills the stage is cunningly set for the show-down. Scarway, ace gunman, faces for the first time on equal terms the death-dealing guns of Blue Pete.

Blue Pete, that most famous cowboy whose adventures have been recorded in a long line of thrilling novels, is here involved in a strange and dangerous mission on behalf of the Mounted Police. Alone he has to discover the secret of the insurrection which the mysterious OGreat ChiefO of the Indians is planning: alone he penetrates to the mountain stronghold of the rebellious Indians where capture would mean a slow and agonizing death. OLuke Allan, O says Truth, Ohas the technique of the Wild West at his fingertips.O This latest Blue Pete yarn of galloping hooves and gripping, snap-shooting action is one of his best.