Examples of two of five stories about cattle ranchers, mining, railroading, and lumber: In "Whiskey Creek Stampeders," Glenn Carnagey returns to Oregon's rough-and-tumble Rouge River mining country, where he is determined to break the stranglehold Charlie Hammaker has on the area by competing against his overland freight line. Set in the years shortly after the Civil War, "Dakota Man" concerns an ex-Union soldier's purchase of land with a guaranteed 2,500 head of longhorn cattle, the pitfalls of cowhands at work in the harsh Mexican brasada, and a band of former Rebel sympathizers who want the soldier gone.