When Dave Runyan set out to deliver a wagonload of barbed wire to a farmer in Wayward, Wyoming, he knew there might be trouble. After all, some of the ranchers referred to barbed wire as "the devil's rope" and they might try to keep the stuff far away from their county.
But even before Dave reached Wayward, he ran into something far more frightening than a few angry ranchers. For a smallpox epidemic had broken out. The U.S. Cavalry was trying to prevent the spread of the deadly disease, and Dave ended up helping them. That was before he knew one of the army officers had a sickness more hateful than smallpox and a plan to turn Dave's wire into a true devil's rope "