First published 1947
Boone Caudill leaves Kentucky behind and strikes out for the Rocky Mountain frontier. The young trapper joins Jim Deakins and Dick Summers on their journey into Montana Territory, where they trade with Native tribes and hunt beaver in pristine valleys. Boone takes Teal Eye, a Blackfoot woman, as his wife and tries to build a life in the wilderness he loves. But white settlers begin arriving in greater numbers, bringing farms and towns to the open country. Boone watches the wild places disappear as civilization creeps westward. He faces a choice between the vanishing frontier that defines him and the changing world that threatens everything he values. The story captures a man torn between his need for freedom and his inability to stop the forces transforming the American West.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: man-vs-nature, man-vs-society
Setting: Kentucky, Rocky Mountain, Montana Territory, Blackfoot
Period: 19th Century
708 pages · Hardcover · Thorndike Pr