The tenderfoots

Philip Trask, a recent New England graduate, finds himself squeezed into a crowded day‑coach bound for Denver in the spring of 1879. Escaping a stalled career in a Kansas City railroad office, he rides west hoping for work and perhaps a clue about his father's mysterious disappearance back home. The endless plains, dotted with prairie‑dog towns and distant herds, contrast sharply with the cramped, noisy carriage filled with prospectors chasing the promise of silver in Leadville.

Inside the coach, Philip is surrounded by rough‑spoken men, a few weary women, and the lingering smell of liquor, a world far removed from the orderly streets of New Hampshire. He watches the frantic crowds at the depot, the chaotic scramble for seats, and the fervent optimism that fuels the rush toward the Rockies. As the train lurches onward, his homesickness deepens, but the journey also awakens a tentative curiosity about the untamed West and what it might hold for him.