To this end, he hired a group of the Ku Klux Klan's Nightriders to kill the townfolk, prompting Jones to bring in a number of Western gunfighters to defend the town.

He often takes on the dialects of past myths, such as a Western gunfighter, a 1920's gangster, and a Delta blues singer.

Mr. L'Amour has lectured widely, traveled the West thoroughly, studied archaeology, compiled biographies of over one thousand Western gunfighters, and read prodigiously (his library holds more than two thousand volumes).

On television, the Marlboro cowboy rode his horse to the driving strains of the theme from "The Magnificent Seven," a movie about Western gunfighters.

"I look at it as a safety issue," Officer Weeks said and, sounding like a Western gunfighter giving sage advice, he added, "You have your back against the wall."

"The Western gunfighter is a strange breed," William Brandon had said.

In the book "Gambling with History," Laurence I. Barrett said Mr. Reagan betrayed no surprise at all the next morning that there had been shooting in the gulf; indeed, Mr. Barrett says, he swaggered a bit for his aides, impersonating a Western gunfighter drawing his six-shooters.

Seated at the table, Boras looks like the successful Orange County lawyer that he is, with a thick gold watch gleaming from his wrist and a touch of the old-time Western gunfighter around his unblinking eyes.

So all one can do is stare at a Western gunfighter made of marzipan, jousting knights carved from pumpkins and delicate wedding cakes more numerous than the days of June.