This book clearly describes a story of a trail west covering many dangerous miles through mountains, desert and Indian held lands. Being a little used passage East or West it had being plotted by the Spanish military going to Los Angeles. The information about the trail was gotten from the local paper in Santa Fe, New Mexico and sheep herders who had traveled the trail to Los Angeles.
The story began with Don Webb having an offer of cash money for five thousand head of Texas longhorns at thirty dollars a head. The Civil War was coming and money was scares. None of these independent Texans wanted to fight a war they don’t understand or agree with. Their only option as they saw it was to round up the cattle and head for New Mexico. Driving cattle from the plains of Texas to the buyer in New Mexico seems like easy work for the money. When they got to New Mexico their buyer was dead at the hands of renegades and they have five thousand head of longhorns with no buyer. Not wanting to return to Texas there options were to head for the of gold fields in Colorado or the beef hungry population in California. Needing a big buyer Los Angeles became the destination. The best way to Los Angeles, California was along a trail called the Old Spanish Trail, a long and dry trail crossing mountains, desert and going through two separate Indian Territories. On their back trail was the band of renegades that killed their original buyer. All they wanted know was the longhorns, but not the work of driving them on the trail.
This story has all the problems of a trail drive that is traversing a new trail. Being shadowed by a band of renegades with two hidden revenge killers imbedded in their back trail gave the trail drive unusual problems. The potential of cattle stampedes and running out of water while trying to survive Indian attacks makes this story a page turner with the potential of problems always getting in the way of driving the cattle to Los Angeles.
I recommend this western story to all of the western readers out there who want to experience a historical description of a trail to Los Angeles. Ralph Compton does an excellent job of giving the reader a true flavor of how it would have been to drive cattle west.
