Lee Roy Williams
~Will was on the losing side in the War, and now he's facing an even more determined enemy--carpetbaggers.~
Will Ballard fought for the South, but he's not ready to go home when he walks away from Appomattox. Old wounds still fester and only time will heal them.
He joins a wagon train heading West, and finds a ready-made family. When events drive him away, he becomes a cowpuncher, just in time to fight land grabbers and a rancher who figures his land is more important than men's lives. Before he can make up his mind to go home, he's got himself a job building a railroad. All goes well until the carpetbaggers set their sights on it, and once more he's adrift.
On the move again, he hires on with a freighter and finds a temporary home on the seat of a wagon. Hard work and friendship finish his healing, and it's finally time for him to go home. Trouble is, those men in their fancy black suits are still grabbing land in the South and West. It's more than Will can take, and he's not shy about saying so.
Eventually he fights his way back to Four Corners, only to discover the same land grabbers and carpetbaggers at work, and a pretty girl who thinks highly of him. There's only one thing for Will to do: hold onto his home, keep the land, marry the girl. And it ain't gonna be easy.
James W. Johnson
~Bob Bainbridge found a gold nugget the size of his thumb. Now everyone in Idaho Territory wants to take it, but Bob "Pokerface" Bainbridge is out to bring justice to the Territory.~
Men with dreams of gold flocked to the strikes in Idaho Territory in the early 1860s. Some were lucky, but only a few people managed to hang onto their fortunes. The Plummer Gang jumped claims, robbed miners, and murdered anyone who got in their way. Until Pokerface Bob Bainbridge showed up, seeking the man who'd ruined his sister--and out for personal revenge.
From the saloons of Oro Fino to the tent cites of the Boise Basin, Bob follows the iniquitous gang, determined to bring law and order to the Territory and to save the woman he has grown to love from a fate far worse than death -- at the hands of Plummer himself. Only incredible courage and steely determination will win the day.
The Bitterroot Trail was originally published in 1935, both in the United States and in England. It is a classic Western novel, but it is also an exciting romance and one heck of a remarkable historical novel.
