A Fiendish Crime Rates 4 out of 5 Stars ****

 A Fiendish Crime recieved four **** out of five stars at online book review.

Dragoon Trail Sutler; Toy Soldiers, Books and more.

                        Welcome to the Dragoon Trail Sutler

Amongst the many dusty corners of my hobby closet, are many boxes of old toy soldiers (and a few newer ones too). Adding to my many interests are the collecting, manufacturing and painting of toy soldiers and its related accessories, Such as horses, tents, cannons and equipment related to them.  I' m going to post quite a few toy soldier photos here, and many of them are for sale. 

                                                          MANUFACTURE / SALE

I also possess many toy soldier molds and have the ability to produce many different toy soldiers, from different time periods and in many different configurations.  Please watch this page if you have an interest. I will be posting these items for sale through this page (via Ebay link and direct sales). All photos posted here are by the author; Gene Stevens Copyright 2024(c) Thank you

*Watch for other sales of history related collectables.

                                                  SALES

                            54mm 1/32 Cannon kits available 

     $7 each plus shipping. I take venmo Or buy me a cup if coffee 

  

                                            54mm UNION SOLDIER MARCHING KIT 

                                                          $5 EA PLUS SHIPPING

                                                       54mm Confederate Flag Bearer

                                                                 $8 ea plus shipping 

                                                                ANTIQUE ITEMS

                                    This is a Daguerreotype I'm EXCELLENT CONDITION 

                                                                          ASKING $125

                                                                        See listing here

                                         I take venmo Or Buy me a cup of coffee. 

                                     Please send me a message at; gene9156@yahoo.com 

                                             Let me know what you want to order.

                                                                  VENMO 

                                                    Or Buy me a cup of coffee 

                                              EBAY SALES, CLICK HERE

Books 

Military Books;

Black Hawk War

Red Flag of Defiance 

Questions and Answer About the Black Hawk War.

Civil war

Prepare to Fight on Foot 

Wild West

A Fiendish Crime

A Fiendish Crime ebook at Lulu.com

Support Dusty Trails

Stage Coach

 

Photo by the author at Council Grove Kansas

The stage coach lines were the original mass transit lines, prior to and in support of railroads, that transported commerce, in the way of people and valuables around the country. The coaches were a point to point or connection to rail lines.

STAGE COACH ROBBERIES

 "organization of robbers extended to the stage lines, and a regular system of communication existed by which the allies advised each other when and where such and such a passenger was going, with such and such an amount of gold upon him. The holding up of the stage was something regularly expected, and the traveler who had any money or valuables drew a long breath when he reached a region where there was really a protecting law. Men were shot down in the streets on little or no provocation, and the murderer boasted of his crime and defied punishment. The dance-halls were run day and night. The drinking of whiskey, and, moreover, bad whiskey, was a thing universal. Vice was everywhere and virtue was not. Those few who had an aim and an ambition in life were long in the minority and, in the welter of a general license, they might not recognize each other and join hands. Murder and pillage ruled, until at length the spirit of law and order, born anew of necessity, grew and gained power as it did in most early communities of the West. How these things in time took place may best be seen by reference to the bloody biographies of some of the most reckless desperadoes ever seen in any land."

THE

STORY OF THE OUTLAW

A STUDY OF THE WESTERN DESPERADO

WITH HISTORICAL NARRATIVES OF FAMOUS OUTLAWS;

THE STORIES OF NOTED BORDER WARS;VIGILANTE MOVEMENTS AND ARMED

CONFLICTS ON THE FRONTIER

BY

EMERSON HOUGH

                                                               Public domain photo

Photo by the author 

Fontier Justice and Jails

FRONTIER JUSTICE AND JAILS

Photo Courtesy of Emory Cantey

"The Land of the Desperado—The Frontier of the Old West—The Great Unsettled Regions—The Desperado of the Mountains—His Brother of the Plains—The Desperado of the Early Railroad Towns.

There was once a vast empire, almost unknown, west of the Missouri river. The white civilization of this continent was three hundred years in reaching it. We had won our independence and taken our place among the nations of the world before our hardiest men had learned anything whatever of this Western empire. We had bought this vast region and were paying for it before we knew what we had purchased. The wise men of the East, leading men in Congress, said that it would be criminal to add this territory to our already huge domain, because it could never be settled. It was not dreamed that civilization would ever really subdue it. Even much later, men as able as Daniel Webster deplored the attempt to extend our lines farther to the West, saying that these territories could not be States, that the East would suffer if we widened our West, and that the latter could never be of value to the union! So far as this great West was concerned, it was spurned and held in contempt, and it had full right to take itself as an outcast. Decreed to the wilderness forever, it could have been forgiven for running wild. Denominated as unfit for the occupation of the Eastern population, it might have been expected that it would gather to itself a population all its own.

It did gather such a population, and in part that population was a lawless one. The frontier, clear across to the Pacific, has at one time or another been lawless; but this was not always the fault of the men who occupied the frontier. The latter swept Westward with such unexampled swiftness that the machinery of the law could not always keep up with them. Where there are no courts, where each man is judge and jury for himself, protecting himself and his property by his own arm alone, there always have gathered also the lawless, those who do not wish the day of law to come, men who want license and not liberty, who wish crime and not lawfulness, who want to take what is not theirs and to enforce their own will in their own fashion."

 From; 

THE

STORY OF THE OUTLAW

A STUDY OF THE WESTERN DESPERADO

WITH HISTORICAL NARRATIVES OF FAMOUS OUTLAWS;

THE STORIES OF NOTED BORDER WARS;

VIGILANTE MOVEMENTS AND ARMED CONFLICTS ON THE FRONTIER BY EMERSON HOUGH

JUDGES AND JURIES

Judge Wells Spicer's OK Corral Decision

There was Justice in The West

The evidence taken before me in this case, would not, in my judgment, warrant a conviction of the defendants by trial jury of any offense whatever. I do not believe that any trial jury that could be got together in this territory, would, on all the evidence taken before me, with the rule of law applicable thereto given them by the court, find the defendants guilty of any offense.

It may be that my judgment is erroneous, and my view of the law incorrect, yet it is my own judgment and my own understanding of the law as I find it laid down, and upon this I must act and decide, and not upon those of any other persons. I have given over four weeks of patient attention to the hearing of evidence in this case, and at least four-fifths of my waking hours have been devoted, at this time, to an earnest study of the evidence before me, and such is the conclusion to which I am forced to arrive.

I have the less reluctance in announcing this conclusion because the Grand Jury of this county is now in session, and it is quite within the power of that body, if dissatisfied with my decision, to call witnesses before them or use the depositions taken before me, and which I shall return to the district court, as by law required, and to thereupon disregard my findings, and find an indictment against the defendants, if they think the evidence sufficient to warrant a conviction.

I conclude the performance of this duty imposed upon me by saying in the language of the Statute: "There being no sufficient cause to believe the within named Wyatt S. Earp and John H. Holliday guilty of the offense mentioned within. I order them to be released."

-Judge Wells Spicer's decision

Photo by the Author

The nature of the western frontier made swift and decisive justice a necessity. 

The above three photos are of a typical frontier jail. This one is 

 located in Adair Iowa photo(s) by the author.

A western gallows

A FRONTIER JAIL IN COUNCIL GROVE KANSAS

PHOTO(S) BY THE AUTHOR. (1)

INTERIOR (2)

Frontier jail from "The Gunfighters" by Time Life

Shackles From the Pictorial History of the wild west 1955