Trago was a man of the West. His Stetson was pushed back on his head, and his big shoulders sloped. A gun hung on his hip. Tom Trago was rough and earthy – a product of the wild free land. Trago was also the last of a breed. The open country, which made men like Trago, was disappearing, parceled up by land-grabbing homesteaders. Trago and his cowmen couldn’t live with fences. They needed space and plenty of it. In September of 1893, Trago is remembering when his nearest neighbors were the Ponca Indians; when he could ride all day and not cross a fence; when Oklahoma was as wild as the hot prarie wind. In twenty-four hours there would be a land rush the likes of which no one had ever seen before. The last of the open range would be settled and fenced, unless Trago and a renegade Congressman could turn back history with their guns.