Punctuated by gunshots and posse hoofbeats, these true tales, many told for the first time, illustrate, in both words and rare photographs, perilous trails and dangerous men from a time gone forever. - While Tommy Brown and Buck English were born to raise hell, stagecoach robber Shorty Harris just wanted to buy a restaurant with his loot.- Although he didn't plan on killing lawmen when he helped rob stages to aid the Confederacy, in the end, ex-Monterey County Undersheriff Tom Poole took the long walk up the Placerville scaffold for murdering Deputy Joseph Staples. The local newspaper reported, "He smiled on all and seemed perfectly resigned."- Black Bart, the most famous stagecoach robber ever, robbed twenty-eight stages in eight years. Between robberies, he led the life of a society gentleman in San Francisco.The Sotello brothers, John Keener, Bill Miner, Louis J. Dreibelbis, Ramon Ruiz, and all the others were fascinating characters--a desperate breed who added their stories to the legends of the Old West.