The Tenderfoot

Andy Stillman went off to college in 1871. He returned in 1875 with a civil engineering degree. Upon arriving in Willow Creek, Wyoming, he finds that his father has been murdered by hired guns of a rival rancher, but that can't be proven in a court of law. He's been away for four years. People in town don't know who he's become. To them, he's more city dude now than rancher. He's a tenderfoot. He has "book learnin'." He's almost an outsider. And his father's ranch--Andy's ranch now--is...
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Andy Stillman went off to college in 1871. He returned in 1875 with a civil engineering degree. Upon arriving in Willow Creek, Wyoming, he finds that his father has been murdered by hired guns of a rival rancher, but that can't be proven in a court of law. He's been away for four years. People in town don't know who he's become. To them, he's more city dude now than rancher. He's a tenderfoot. He has "book learnin'." He's almost an outsider. And his father's ranch--Andy's ranch now--is under attack. A drought is causing Will O'Meara's Circle-K ranch to lose cattle, and he wants Stillman's water: Little Muddy Creek. How does a tenderfoot with eight cowhands and a young brother and sister, fight a violent rancher with twenty men, six recently-hired rough men, and three murdering gunslingers? Answer: he sends his family and all his cowhands away, then goes it alone.