Calico the Wonder Horse

 
Okay, folks, this is a book that has all the makings of an action packed, knock-your-socks-off, read-it-again-and-again, Western for the not-so-faint-at-heart.  To begin with:
Way out West in Cactus County there was a horse named Calico.  She wasn't very pretty . . . but she was very smart.  She was the smartest fastest horse in all of Cactus County.  She could run like greased lightning and she could turn on a quarter and give you back fifteen cents in change.

And, like all bang-'em-up Westerns, there's a standoff between the good guys (Calico and Hank) and the bad guys:
Stewy Stinker - was said to be so mean he would hold up Santa Claus on Christmas Eve
Butch Bones - boasted that he was so tough he would bite a live grizzly bear's nose
Snake Eye Pyezon - was so crooked , that if he swallowed nails he'd spit out corkscrews
Buzzard Bates - was so bad even a buzzard wouldn't use him for bait

This book has it all: a round-up, "Badlands . . . good only for hideouts for Bad Men," a stagecoach driven by none other than Diehard Dan, a cattle rustling, a kidnapping, a stampede, a holdup, and a chase.

So run, don't walk, to your local library and check out Calico the Wonder Horse or The Saga of Stewy Stinker by Virginia Lee Burton before they're all hustled off the shelves.