Trail Through Danger

by William O. Steele, Charles Beck (Illustrator)

Eleven year old Lafe Birdwell didn't mind hard work, but Mr. Gibbs, to whom he had hired himself out, was a mean master. Mr Gibbs's only interest in taking a hunting party into Cherokee territory was to kill as many buffalo as possible for their valuable hides and sell them for a large profit in the Carolinas. When the men rode out to hunt, Lafe was left behind to take care of the camp, and he was often lonely.

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1965

Reviews

[L8blmr · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recently won an auction of "vintage" children's books, none of which I remember reading. This one was published in 1965 and would have appealed mostly to boy readers back in the day, I imagine (politically correct or not!). The plot was simple: an 11-year-old boy is hired to accompany 4 adult men and do all the grunt work on a buffalo hunt on land belonging at the time to native Americans. There was a lot of action and suspense, but no real heroes. In fact, most of the adults believed the "Indians" were spawn of the devil and felt perfectly entitled to all the skins they could take back with them on their pack horses. If you believe in karma, you'd enjoy what became of the hunting party's spoils. There was no bloodshed to speak of in this story, and the young hero (though not recognized as such) performed some daring deeds. The dialog, which may be fairly realistic for the time and region (lots of talk about "Virginny" and "Caroliny") but there were certain phrases used that did not ring true to me; they simply didn't make any sense. Believe me, having been born and raised in the South, I have read a wealth of southern historical fiction and heard for myself the way my grandparents spoke. I will continue reading through my treasures but this book didn't impress me.

[Zachary Westrate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it was a good entertaining book with lots of twists and turns