Grant Withers

Mistaken for train robbers, Matt Dow and Davey Bishop are shot at by the sheriff and his posse but they are cleared and hired as lawmen. Odd little Western that gets off to a snappy start when a man (Matt Dow) is mistaken as a train robber. After the town's sheriff shoots the kid he's riding with, Dow clears his name and ends up as the new sheriff. He romances a Swedish woman and settles in to a peaceful life only to find that the boy has a few secrets of his own.

In 1883, an American merchant ship's captain is searching for a treasure in diamonds from a sunken Dutch ship in the vicinity of a volcanic island in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch East Indies, at the end of the nineteenth century. An adventurous captain of an American merchant vessel is looking for a sunken Dutch vessel containing 10,000 precious diamonds. Unfortunately, he's not the only one and then there's also that volcano on the nearby island of Krakatau, waiting to explode in its historical, disastrous eruption... —Homme A. Piest <piest@pobox.leidenuniv.nl>

Feud between the long-established stagecoach and steamship lines and the emergent railway companies trying to expand into the Midwest. Loumas, president of the Rock Island Trail company, tries to expand his rails into the Midwest but finds resistance of the steamship and stage-coach lines. The malicious Kirby Murrow tries everything to slow down Loumas' progress and doesn't even stop before sabotage. Only Constanze, daughter of banker Strong, believes in his success strong enough to support him financially. —Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

A cavalry officer posted on the Rio Grande is confronted with murderous raiding Apaches, a son who's a risk-taking recruit and his wife from whom he has been separated for many years. Rio Grande takes place after the Civil War when the Union turned their attention towards the Apaches. Union officer Kirby Yorke is in charge of an outpost on the Rio Grande in which he is in charge of training of new recruits one of which is his son whom he hasn't seen in 15 years. He whips him into shape to take on the Apaches but not before his mother shows up to take him out of there.The decision to leave is left up to Trooper Yorke who decides to stay and fight. Through it all Kirby and Kathleen though separated for years fall back into love and decide that it's time to give it another try. But Yorke faces his toughest battle when his unorthodox plan to outwit the elusive Apaches leads to possible court-martial. Locked in a bloody Indian war, he must fight to redeem his honor and save the love and lives of his broken family. —Christopher D. Ryan <cryan@direct.ca> Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke commands a U.S. cavalry troop north of the Rio Grande. Indians have been raiding and then fleeing south of the river into Mexico. Yorke is surprised when he learns that the son he has not seen for 15 years, Jeff, has flunked out of West Point. He's barely digested the information when his son shows up at the camp as a new cavalry recruit. His personal life gets even more complicated when his wife, Jeff's mother, Kathleen also shows up at the fort intent on taking her son home. As the situation increasingly deteriorates, the women and children are sent to safety but the wagon train is attacked and all the children taken forcing Yorke and his men to cross into Mexico to get them back. —garykmcd

In 1818 Alabama, French settlers are pitted against greedy land-grabber Blake Randolph but Kentucky militiaman John Breen, who's smitten with French gal Fleurette De Marchand, comes to the settlers' aid. Following Napoleon's Waterloo defeat and the exile of his officers and their families from France, the U.S.Congress, in 1817, granted four townships in the Alabama territory to the exiles. Led by Colonel Georges Geraud and General Paul DeMarchand, the struggling settlers have made a thriving community, called Demopolis, by the summer of 1819. On a shopping trip to Mobile, Fleurette DeMarchand, the General's daughter, meets John Breen, a Kentucky rifleman, who detours his regiment through Demopolis to court her. But Fleurette, despite her wish to marry for love, must bow to the needs of her fellow exiles, who are at the mercy of the rich and wealthy Blake Randolph, and who wants her as his bride. But John Breen has no intention of allowing that to happen, resigns from his regiment, and takes up the fight against Randolph and his hirelings. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net> In Alabama in 1818, Kentucky militiaman John Breen falls in love with a French exile and discovers a plot to steal the land her fellow exiles plan to settle on. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

During the 1860s in the South Pacific, Capt. Ralls, skipper of the Red Witch, has a series of adventures involving sunken gold bullion, pearls, natives, an unscrupulous ship owner and a giant octopus. Captain Ralls fights Dutch shipping magnate Mayrant Sidneye for the woman he loves, Angelique Desaix, and for a fortune in gold aboard the Red Witch. —Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

Cavalry officer John Drum attempts to track down outlaw Whit Lacey, but finds he must join forces with Lacey to fight a Sioux war party. In the 1870s, fugitive outlaw Johnny Drum is confronted by Sheriff Sam Borden inside a general store. Drum shoots the sheriff in front of customers Lin Conner and Julie Ann McCabe. The two women are saloon dancers and Julie happens to be the girlfriend of another wanted outlaw, Whit Lacey. He's wanted for raiding Eben Martin's mining operations. After escaping the town, Drum takes to the trail where he's followed by the sheriff deputies and their posse. He manages to elude them but he's attacked by a band of Sioux. Fortunately, Drum is aided in the ensuing firefight by bandit Whit Lacey who happened by. The two outlaws become friends and partners. They plan various robbery schemes. Lacey needs the money to move to California with his sweetheart, Julie Ann McCabe. Unknown to Lacey, Drum actually is an undercover army officer who only pretended to kill the town sheriff in order to create a cover story in his quest to find and apprehend Lacey. Eventually, Lacey finds out the truth about Drum but allows him to leave their hideout unharmed. Later, Drum and the town's deputies capture Lacey and take him to the nearest army fort. They want Lacey tried but some angry citizens at the fort want to lynch him, despite Drum's fierce opposition. The lynching is interrupted by a major Sioux attack on the fort. Now, they all have to forget their differences and defend the fort until reinforcements arrive. Drum and Lacey find themselves fighting, once more, side by side. —nufs68

During WW2, the U.S. Navy implements a new idea of forming construction battalions that also are fighting units, in case of Japanese attack. Construction workers in World War II in the Pacific are needed to build military sites, but the work is dangerous and they doubt the ability of the Navy to protect them. After a series of attacks by the Japanese, something new is tried, Construction Battalions (CBs=Seabees). The new CBs have to both build and be ready to fight. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>