The Desert Crucible

Zane Grey wrote this splendidly thrilling sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage in 1915, but for almost ninety years it has existed in a profoundly censored version.

Young John Shefford, a tenderfoot from Illinois who’s escaping from his troubled past, heads west to follow up the curious legend of three people who live imprisoned in isolated Surprise Valley, one of whom is a beautiful young girl named Fay Larkin. Shefford, half in love with the girl he’s never met, is determined to find the valley and free her—if she’s still alive.

Shefford finds himself nearly overwhelmed with his experiences of the incredible beauty of the high desert territory, his new life working for the small trading posts there, his first encounters with friendly Navajos as well as dangerously hostile Indians, his ideas regarding the Mormon men and their “sealed wives,” and his encounter with real love, all of which work their changes in him. He comes out a man made true and good, finally freed from the feelings of shame he had harbored so long.

“In The Desert Crucible, we have restored Dad’s original title as well as his original text for this story. It surely deserves to be read as Zane Grey wrote it.” —Loren Grey, from the foreword