The principal characters are associated with the cattle trade and most of them are treated from a commercial and financial aspect, not a romantic one.
Brindy Polaris is a longhorn cow that leads the drive to Montana. She is anthropomorphic.
There is in the story a mix of historical characters, among them Abel H. "Shanghai" Pierce, the Indians Gall, Wash-a-kie, and others. Historically and geographically correct to the best of my knowledge, the book portrays the nineteenth-century cattle trade as it really developed. Although it lasted only 20 years (1865-1885), profits from that period funded almost all the large ranchers in the latter-day Texas.
The book's love story, while germane, issecondary to the central theme: the growth and settlement of the trans-Mississippi west; the fur trade, homesteading, and Indian wars and pacification.
Organized in four parts, Part I defines John Dunigan. Part II, "The Deal," describes preparations for driving 5,000 head of cattle to Montana. Part III covers that drive. Part IV is "The Epilogue."
Throughout his life, John Dunigan tries to control his circumstances as much as he can, so he isn't carried along by events and can protect himself and his family fortunes. He is seldom surprised, which is very much in keeping with his character.
The settings are divided among Dunigan's home in Refugio and the area variously called the wild horse desert, the Nueces strip, the Brasada, and South Texas, that part of the state between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers, whose control was the rationale for the Mexican War of 1846-48. Other locales: the Chisholm Trail, the Western Trail, the Mormon Trail, and their conclusions at Abilene, Newton, and Dodge City, Kansas, and Fort Fetterman, Wyoming. The larger area is the Great Plains of central United States, from northers Mexico to Canada, and from St. Louis and Kansas City to Denver.
The characters are as historically accurate as I could draw them. I knew some of them as a boy, and listened to tails of the old cattle drives, some of them admittedly second and third hand. I hope this story conveys a true picture of that turbulent.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
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