Pioneers: Dragon Tooth Gold - Vol. 2

After the death of their parents, the Callahan children find themselves in a nation is on the brink of Civil War. The boys join the Army Supply Service and head for the California coast, delivering arms and supplies to outposts on the Santa Fe trail. Suzette runs away from her grandmother and joins brothers on the trail west.

Publisher Marketing: Prologue - Summarizes Volume 1 and sets the stage for travel on the Santa Fe Trail. Olathe - The rebelous Suzette joins up with her older brothers to head west. First Troubles - Eli and his brothers wait to join up with a larger wagon train only to find that the wagon master is a drunkard. The Narrows - A nine mile stretch of trail that is impossible to cross when wet. Eli makes it across but the rest of the train mires and stops. The drunkard finds his last bottle, corn whiskey tainted with wood alcohol. Eli assumes command of the wagon train. On watch in the dark, Suzette wounds a Mexican sneaking into the camp. The Mexican wants his revenge. A New Paradigm - Suzette unpacks a crate of Henry Rifles destine for a hardware store in Santa Fe. Their firepower is increased more than tenfold. Delay and Burial - A large band of renegades is operating on the trail. They encounter the sight of a massacare and stop to bury the dead. Suzette finds a young Mexican girl hiding in the rushes with a broken leg. Burlingame - The wagon train stops for repairs and reshoeing of the mules. The Callahan's stay on guard for the Mexican renegade. They learn he is Chico Diablo, an infamous outlaw and murderer. Twenty Mile Days - The green drivers and swampers turn into experienced hands. Pushing ever west, Eli befriends a Chinese cook, Mr. Sue who becomes a friend for life. Council Grove - The showdown with Chico de Diablo. Suzette kills the outlaw in a gunfight inside a church but is wounded. He fame as a gunslinger and one tough woman grows as she stitches up a wound in her side. Comanche Contact - The Indians encounter the firepower of the Henry Rifle. Defense on the trail changes forever. Fort Larned - Suzette is given a new weapon for self defense. A burette for her hair, armed with a spike. Endless Prairie - A week more of travel, Roland and Suzette blunder into Bent's Fort in the midst of a pounding rainstorm. Bent's blacksmith, a boxer, is a stalker and a rapist. He focuses on Suzette. Fort Wise - Fights are scheduled. Roland, an accomplished bare knuckels boxer himself, signs the roster for the sixt bout. The Fight - A suprising ending, Suzette and the orphaned Mexican girl win a small fortune from Bent and his banker. Abduction - Enraged by his losses, Bent's banker and his sidekick abduct Suzette and hold her for ransom. Their last mistake. Iron Spring - First encounter with hostile Apache. Again Henry Rifles and smart tactics make the day. Ratón - Steep grades and accidents were their constant companion crossing the spine of the Colorado Rockies. Fort Union - A shooting contest, the Doctors Way and a day in court. Santa Fe - More freight and a dangerous mission to deliver to fort Moore in Los Angeles. Suzette returns the Mexican girl to her grandparents. El Camino Real - On the spur of the moment, Roland marries a beautiful Mexican woman widowed by the Apache. Apache Pass - Tactics and superior fire power again win the day. Magnas Coloradas backs the Apache down and the wagon train threads it way through the pass without incident. Rio de San Pedro - Eli turns them north to meet the Gila River. They recover a map from a Peralta family envoy. An ex marks a mountain in the Arizona Territories. Colorodo Crossing - Eli finds the ferry across the mighty Colorado operated by illegal slaves. The Mojave - Hot and deadly, even in the fall, the traverse is wracked with danger End of the Line - The grandmother, Denise, is waiting for them in Los Angeles San Pedro - Eli helps free the town from a crooked sheriff and his longshormen thugs. Epilogue - Review Quotes : Dr. Kay Dean-Lifetime educator. Kent McGrew is a brilliant metallurgist, geologist, and a much sought-after consultant for the mining industry. I would expect nothing less from this intellectual, voluble engineer than the story I read in Volume I of his Dragon Tooth Gold series. Kudos to you, Kent, on an excellent book! Publisher Marketing : Dragon Tooth Gold - Volume 2 - Pioneers finds the second generation young adult Callahans mid summer, 1860. The nation is on the brink of Civil War. Eli, the oldest, and the twins join the Army Supply Service under the pressure of the their mother Anna and their grandmother Denise. Still serving their counry but safe from the front lines if war should break out, they work for the Quartermaster at Fort Leavenworth on short hauls to supply bases on the Santa Fe Trail. Disaster strikes in the form of a tornado that kills their parents and severely injures their younger sister, Suzette. After the burial of their mother and the abandonment of the search for their father, the boys take a contract to deliver a heavy load of supplys to the garrison at Santa Fe. They head to Fort Leavenworth to load up and head west. Denise is going to take Suzette by ship to meet up with the boys in Los Angeles, however, Suzette has plans of her own. She runs away and waits for her brothers on the trail. Contributor Bio: McGrew, Kent Joseph Kent McGrew has taken a refreshing break from years of technical writing to bring his readers Dragon Tooth Gold; an epic historical fiction of gold mining in the American West. Born during WWII, McGrew was raised by immigrant grandparents in the Sacramento Valley. He was drawn into mining partnerships with his father at age fourteen where he discovered the science that should be the bulwark of every effort. After three mining venture failures, he attended the Montana School of Mines for degrees in Mineral Dressing Engineering, an odd corner of extractive metallurgy recovering minerals and metals from ores. Five years in college for a B.S., three years in the US Army, and a year with a Teaching Fellowship for his M.S. Degree, were beneficial interruptions to a career that has spanned sixty years. Project work took him to every continent except Antarctica, where he literally missed the plane tour from New Zealand. Under the pen name of Auntie GEM (Government, Education & Mining), he wrote weekly articles about the history and current events of gold mining in the Black Hills. Three years of anti-mining initiatives during the South Dakota general elections kept him busy writing and speaking on tours around the state. His work appeared weekly in the Lead Daily Call, and spread to every weekly newspaper in the Dakotas. Over the years, McGrew has unmasked a wide variety of mining scams. His Five Axioms of Mining Scams, published in 1994, are still widely quoted and woven into the fabric of Dragon Tooth Gold. The mining vagabond settled in Congress, Arizona twenty-eight years ago when he met Sally - a woman he couldn't pass up - his gold fever cured forever with this amazing find. Kent continues to mentor and teach both children and adults, sharing science, math, and mining; avoiding the perils and pitfalls of retirement.

Format: Paperback | Pages: 412 | Publication Date: 2019-06-24