Ty Hardin, who roamed the West searching for adventure in the television series “Bronco” in the late 1950s and early ’60s, died on Thursday in Huntington Beach, Calif. He was 87.

His wife, Caroline, confirmed his death, but said the cause had not been determined.

In a television landscape crowded with gunslingers like Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, Lucas McCain (the Rifleman) and Bret Maverick, Mr. Hardin carved a niche playing Bronco Layne, a soft-spoken loner slow to anger but quick on the draw and skilled in the saddle.

“There ain’t a horse that he can’t handle, that’s how he got his name,” a line in the show’s theme song went.

First introduced on the series “Cheyenne” in 1958, Bronco, formerly a captain in the Confederate Army, held various jobs as he traveled — Army scout, deputy sheriff, wagon-train master, undercover post-office agent and miner among them — and encountered colorful historical characters along the way, notably Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok and Jesse James (played by James Coburn).