The return of the western classic that the Philadelphia Inquirer says proves that David Wagoner is the "closest nowadays approximation of Mark Twain himself."It's 1852, and it's twenty-two-year-old Zeke Hunt's job is to herd his family's 28, insatiable, scissorbill hogs from Missouri to California, where the Hunts hope to start a new life. But after his family is massacred, he's forced to continue the perilous, wild, unpredictable journey across the Great Plains with what's left of his scalp, his three remaining hogs, and Casper, an old whiskey salesman that he befriends along the way.

“Mark Twain had a way of describing life that let you taste it and laugh at it simultaneously. It isn’t a gift that shows up very often among writers, but it’s here again in David Wagoner’s tale. He writes with wit and sparkle,” Courier-Post
“One of the wildest, funniest, and most memorable trips ever dreamed up by a novelist. Wagoner is a master story-teller.” Chicago Tribune
A western classic, back in print for the first time in 85 years!
Cliff Monroe came to Painted Springs to be the County Health Officer. He had hardly stepped off the stagecoach when a fusillate of shots rang out...and he had his first patient. It was just the latest violence in a fierce feud between cattlemen and sheepmen that was raging in the territory. The Sheriff refused to step in the violent fray, claiming "neutrality," and Cliff tried to follow his example, but he fell in love with Nancy Starweather, daughter of the sheepmen's leader, which made that a hard line to walk. The only answer was to use his wits, his guns, and his tenacity to end the feud himself.