It's the story of two Texas cowpokes, Ralph and Fred, who arrive in Hangtown and play a large part in its development. Though Greenwood knows the area well, the book is not a historical novel but a fictional memoir written by Ralph decades later, told in cowboy lingo.
Chapter by chapter, aided and abetted by colorful characters (like Dinwiddie and his drinking establishment and whorehouse), the reader sees Hangtown develop into a thriving community, complete with small-town squabbles that threaten the "one for all" spirit. Greenwood's magic trick is to show this change almost in the background while the reader is focused on the characters and their adventures.
In the beginning, Ralph writes, "Hangtown, when we rode in lookin’ aroun’, were obviously a minin’-camp, an’ not a town. You could tell this by the people which you seed, on ‘counta that nobody looked to be from there — everbody looked to be from somewherst else, an’ plannin’ to head out to a different somewherst-else jus’ as quick as they’d got rich. We seed ever’ size an’ shape an’ color of human bein’ which they is, scurryin’ aroun’ on that road — includin’ Chinese, which some people don’ feel is a human bein’ at all. But I do."
It's a world of strong coffee ("‘Courst my notion of coffee is that it’s coffee if’n a horseshoe-nail will float in it, but it’s dishwater if’n that nail sinks") and chance encounters ("A man name’ Bidwell rode up to see us, the nex’ summer. He were from a town maybe a hunderd an’ some mile north, an’ he wanted to start him a ranch up there").
The town's spirit should be what Mr. Chisholm once told Ralph: "‘We is all ridin’ for the brand, startin’ with me, an’ we all has got to ride together. So any man which takes away from the brand, like stealin’ or shirkin’ or suchlike, has got to put somethin’ back in, so’s we can ride together again.’”
Ride for the brand, dear reader.
