Fire and Fury on the Frontier — Robert M. Johnson

The 19th Century in America was remarkable for many things that formed and shaped the new country that was rapidly expanding from ocean to ocean. Men like the fictional characters, Sam Ogden and Clyde Patterson had been among the first to participate in the wilderness trapping bonanza spawned by the beaver trade and the culture of the top hat. Now, it is the mid-1840's, and the need for beaver pelts is over. The West was about to see the first signs of a real Western migration, the Oregon Trail. Sam Ogden had invested his wealth, from his days as a trapper, in the General Store of a southern Colorado settlement, at Grand Junction. With his wife, the Mandan woman, Little Fire, Sam has settled down and is beginning to raise a family. His reputation with the Long Rifle, the frontier Hawken rifle, followed him into the more stable life of the settlement. The Indians at the Rendezvous, started calling him Sam Long Rifle. His partner, Clyde Patterson, a veteran of the War of 1812, and quite a bit older than Young Sam, has also taken up life in the settlement. In two previous volumes, Sam Long Rifle, and The Stalking Moon, Sam has taken on the challenges of frontier living. This new volume, Fire and Fury on the Frontier, finds Sam enlisted by the U.S. military governor of Colorado in his most dangerous mission to date. He must bring to justice a known killer described by one hardscrabble frontiersman in these chilling words He's as mean as mean is! The man has been terrorizing the frontier with his ruthless brutality, bringing Fire and Fury into the lives of innocent settlers. He has been joined by two shiftless trappers, men as depraved as he, a killing triad was terrorizing the frontier. Sam has his work cut out for him.