Slang and expressions, like "buffalo sign" for hole donuts, "I taken out" for lit outta there hot-foot invisibly blend researched facts with tall tales, and hint at hard won practical life philosophies. With only one strong man to teach the orphan youth fine boxing techniques and back them up, 1880s West is a dangerous new land. "We work out our destinies subject to a lot of accident, incident, and whim. The men I'd seen die, died mostly because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the kind of men they were mattered not in the least. The good seemed to go as easily as the bad, the brave as quickly as the cowards."At "Hanging Woman Creek" line shack, narrator Barney "Pronto" Pike 26 and colored Eddie Holt 28, chance met drunk tank pals, decide to pass the winter herding for and exchanging cowboy expertise for boxing, but don't see the last of shifty cell-mate Van Bokkelen. Bill Justin hires them to gather Bar J stock, but Rafter 88 brand overlays easy atop. After Pike guides pretty Ann to her brother Philo's new homestead, big cattle-man Roman Bohlen gathers a vigilante group to burn out the invading "nester" - honorable kindly folk, wealthy with "no need to steal cows (terms general in those days), or desire to." Violent fights with guns, fists, deaths of good people, and, most unusual for the West, leaving an innocent woman for dead. "Lando" Orlando Sackett, sweet-tongued "swapper" trader, believes his father Falcon, gone six years, is still alive, despite three Kurbishaw brothers of his late mother pursuing, offering a reward. "We have killed the wolf, now we shall kill the whelp". Neighbor Will Caffrey betrays his trust and steals his three sacks of gold coins, so at 12, the boy runs 30-odd rough miles to his family cabin, surviving alone in the Blue Ridge Appalachian Mountains. Now at 17 he heads west with Tinker, gypsy bedecked with gold earrings and fine sharp knives, who teaches him fighting like (real) Jem Mace. But Tinker searches the wrong pack for coffee, has a secret agenda concerning lost gold. More than a western, history, escapes, fights, chases, races, romances, this is suspense, pirate, dig for gold treasure yarn.