Using many old journals, diaries, letters and pioneers' reminiscences, the author has re-created the story of this Trail, marked in 1863 by John Bozeman and John Jacobs, which went right through the Indians' last remaining great hunting country. And it was the Sioux Indians, under the great chief Red Cloud, who fought for every mile. This is a great saga of the Old West, an account filled with the struggles against nature, the battles between red man and white, of victories and defeats, of the discovery of gold, and the hangings of road agents by Vigilantes. Here too is the story of the mysterious death of General Francis Meagher, and the heroic ride of Portuguese Phillip.