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.
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.
