345 pages, frontis, illustrations. "One of the best books ever written about the Southwest."--Stanley Vestal This pioneering work is about the traders, trappers, and explorers in the vast area that would become Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado. Foreman describes the early explorations of the French and Spanish in the Louisiana Territory and often focuses on the junction of the Verdigris, Grand, and Arkansas rivers, known as the Three Forks, a trading and military center from which the conquest of a large part of the American Southwest was achieved."