Scouts, Skinners, and Other Lesser Plainsmen

The Wild West would have remained too wild for even the most talented gunfighters to tame had it not been for the scouts, trappers, Indian fighters, freighters, soldiers, and settlers who preceded them. There were no towns to settle, no businesses to patronize, no rows to hoe, and no roads to travel. Everything had to be earned the hard way. For most men, it meant death and dismemberment. For others, it meant failure. Few and far between were those who found glory. Everywhere the iron horse galloped, civilization soon followed. Yet, who would have forged the trails that the iron rails traveled, which forts would have protected the workers driving those spikes into the earth, and what towns would those trains have been traveling to if not for the Beckwourths and Bridgers of the world? It was the frontiersmen who forged the track long before the laborers laid it, and it was along that unpaved road where Billy Breakenridge cut his teeth.