They had beaten the harsh odds of the frontier. But for the two powerful ranchers, the most formidable trail lay ahead. There had never been a trail drive like this before... The only riches Texans had left after the Civil War were five million maverick longhorns and the brains, brawn, and boldness to drive them to market along treacherous trails. Now, Ralph Compton brings this violent and magnificent time to life in an extraordinary series based on the history-blazing trail drives. For veteran ranchers Nelson Story of Montana, and Benton McCaleb of Wyoming, it was an opportunity a man didn't pass up. In gold camps of the Black Hills, miners were hungry for beef, at boomtown prices. But within the two outfits were Indians, gunmen, Texans, lovesick cowboys, and high-spirited women. Worse, the drive would pass through Crow and Sioux territory, when Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn was just hours away. The drives were tangled by violent grudges, stampeding herds, and dangerous deception. The two brawling outfits had one thing in common: a deadly surprise awaiting them at the end of the trail...

The only riches Texans has left after the Civil War were five million maverick longhorns and the brains, brawn and boldness to drive them north to where the money was. Now, Ralph Compton brings this violent and magnificent time to life in an extraordinary epic series based on the history-blazing trail drives. Set on rescuing their old friend Clay Duval who is trapped inside war-torn Mexico, Gill and Van Austin, nephews of Texas founder Stephen Austin, cross the border after him and soon discover half of Mexico's army wants them dead. Taken prisoner by Santa Anna's soldiers, the brothers make a daring escape and head into Durango country, where they stumble on a valley full of longhorns--and a chance to build a future north of the border. All they have to do now is break Duval out of prison and drive the cattle to safety. But faced with outlaws, soldiers and the cunning plans of a beautiful woman, the Austins are finding out that this isn't a trail drive, it's a war to reach the Bandera Range alive. And the only way to do it is the Texan way--figting for every bloody, dusty mile ahead.

Through a thousand miles of dust, fists, and guns, they found the courage to keep on driving. The only riches Texans had left after the Civil War were five million maverick longhorns and the brains, brawn and boldness to drive them north to where the money was. Now, Ralph Compton brings this violent and magnificent time to life in an extraordinary epic series based on the history-making trail drives. The Virginia City Trail With a dream of building a ranching empire in Montana, Nelson Story sets off on one of the most extraordinary journeys in frontier history. By his side was a bunch of misfits and renegades-hard-fighting, war-bitten Texans with nothing left to lose. On his tail as the worst kind of enemy-brutal outlaws fixing to bleed his trail drive dry. Pushing his way through four harsh territories and three brutal seasons, Story would defy the Union Army, get a hold of a hundred Remingtons, and take on a thousand riled-up Sioux warriors, before he reached Virginia City-and came face-to-face with the man who wanted him dead...

From bestselling author Compton comes the eighth book in the spectacular saga of the trailblazing cowboys who made their fortune driving cattle from Texas to the Great Frontier. Reissue.

During the winter of 1776, in one of the most amazing logistical feats of the Revolutionary War, Henry Knox and his teamsters transported cannons from Fort Ticonderoga through the sparsely populated Berkshires to Boston to help drive British forces from the city. This history documents Knox's precise route--dubbed the Henry Knox Trail--and chronicles the evolution of an ordinary Indian path into a fur corridor, a settlement trail, and eventually a war road. By recounting the growth of this important but under appreciated thoroughfare, this study offers critical insight into a vital Revolutionary supply route.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, cash-starved Texans turned to the only resource they possessed in abundance: longhorn cows. Despite the hazards of trailing longhorns across some three hundred miles of Indian Territory, this was the only way to access the railroad... THE WESTERN TRAIL Benton McCaleb and his band of bold-spirited cowboys traveled long and hard to drive thousands of ornery cattle into Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. They're in the midst of setting up a ranch just north of Cheyenne when a ruthless railroad baron and his hired killers try to force them off the land. Now, with the help of the Shoshoni Indian tribe and a man named Buffalo Bill Cody, McCaleb and his men must vow to stand and fight. Outgunned and outmanned, they will wage the most ferocious battle of their lives—to win the right to call the land their own.