The westering trail travesties : five little-known tales of the old west that probably ought to a' stayed that way / Mark Warren.

Rumors from the edge of the world -- Too long in the saddle -- Code of the Ranger -- Gourd -- Niobrara.

These five stories range from the surreal to the tear-jerker, as the Old West is held upside down by its boots and shaken until all common sense falls out into the crucible of parody. In Rumors from the Edge of the World, Kid Concho and his Arizona outlaw gang of misfits stumble upon a prophetic Apache spring. Too Long in the Saddle follows the exploits of a Boston newspaper reporter who is ordered on assignment to frontier Kansas. Code of the Ranger travels with a quartet of Arizona Rangers who-without extradition papers-must ride undercover into Texas to bring back Bad Bob Banning. Once they capture him, can they make it out of Texas alive? In Gourd, fourteen-year-old Curtis Blaydes loses his father and mother. Alone he continues to run the family homestead in the hinterlands of south Texas, until a visitor arrives. Niobrara introduces a notable triangle of youngsters in northern Nebraska. When they grow older, the triangle breaks under the stress of divergent careers. --