"Linked accounts of frontier crimes and trials from 1885 to 1929 across West Texas, Indian and New Mexico Territories, and Montana trace the evolution of criminal justice in the American West"--Provided by publisher.

The most lawless land in the American West was the 70,000 square miles of frontier Western Arkansas and the Indian Territory of the Five Civilized Tribes; what later would become Oklahoma. Rape, robbery, murder, horse theft, gun and whiskey running were the everyday crimes that often went unpunished. It took both the gavel and the gun --- and hangman¿s knot to tame this land. The Territory was a magnet to outlaws and spoilers of every brand. Law, order, and justice didn¿t come until almost ten years after the Civil War. Law and order finally came in the form of ¿the Hanging Judge,¿ Isaac Parker, a new U.S. Marshal, Mace Truax, and a Choctaw Indian Territorial Policeman named John Browneagle.

The memoirs of a long-serving American lawyer who began his practice in 1896 when Oklahoma was still an outlaw's paradise. Some of the dramatic and hilarious events from Mathers' career in which he handled over 1,000 cases involving the death penalty for the accused and often danger for the attorney, judge and jury. Chapters cover many notorious characters of the day including "Machine Gun" Kelly.

The 70,000 square miles of the Oklahoma Indian Territory, The Nations, as it was called, was a land of vicious and evil deeds by cruel and heartless outlaws as well as renegade Indians. Mace Truax was the U.S. Marshal for Judge Isaac Parker's court for the U.S. Western District of Arkansas in Ft. Smith. The Judge was allotted 200 Deputy Marshals, but less than half that number was on the job when Parker took the bench. Together the Marshal and the Judge had to bring justice and peace to this land - using the gavel and the gun. Mace had to find hard but honest men to take on the badge, and the Judge had to try cases of horse theft, robbery, fraud, rape, and murder. It was an ongoing tale of the fight for law and order in the American West.