Taking out his much-prized Smith and u0026 Wesson revolver, Ed Ballinger showed it to the Texans. The result was not what he expected. 'You call that a gun?' asked the Ysabel Kid. 'Happen you aim to tangle with Reckharts' men,' warned Dusty Fog, 'you'd better get something better than an itty-bitty stingy gun - or make your will.' Looking at the tiny .32 caliber revolver, Mark Counter nodded. 'Was I a praying man, I'd shout "Amen" to that.' Ed Ballinger had a lot to learn about the west ... including how to live by the law of the gun. J.T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson's works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized "West That Never Was", at a pace that rarely slackens.