Bloody Rails to Little Nell

In 1871, the railroad from Cheyenne had only arrived in Denver, Colorado Territory, the year before. By that time, the gold and silver ore from deep in the Rocky Mountains was putting a strain on the wagon facilities of countless mule trains bringing the raw ore to the Denver Smelter. Railroads into the mineral rich Colorado Rockies was a necessity if this new and rugged western territory was to succeed and become a state. .

Numerous eastern railroading interests were vying to obtain rights-of-way and grants from Washington, D.C., to give them control over these priceless subsidies. It was a time of violence, political payoffs and reckless adventurers who did anything to be the first into the vast wilderness of the mountains.

Into this seething mass of intrigue, murder and chicanery came United States Marshall Al Palmer, Civil War hero of the Confederacy, to find the identities of the men who were killing and bribing their way to success and fortune with millions of dollars from the hidden coffers of eastern money.

Al Palmer, famous lawman of the West in the late 1800's, blood brother to the Oglalla Sioux, deadly quickdraw with his British Landers seven shot revolver, takes on the entire devious railroading interests, ridding the western mountain frontier of corruption and graft, and almost loses his life in the process.

The story of building railroads into the Colorado mountains and to the fabulously rich Little Nell gold mine is western history at its best.