The Spirit of the Border [with Biographical Introduction]

The Ohio River Trilogy #2

by Zane Grey

"The Spirit of the Border" is Zane Grey's 1906 historical novel based on events occurring in the Ohio River Valley in the late 18th century. The second installment in a trilogy that includes "Betty Zane" and "The Last Trail", which details the exploits of Lewis Wetzel, an American frontiersman who has dedicated his life to fighting Native Americans. Known as "Deathwind", Lewis is faced with the challenge of having to single-handedly save Fort Henry from Chief Wingenund and the Indians of the Ohio River Valley. A tale of adventure set in the American Old West, Zane Grey's "The Spirit of the Border" is a classic of the western genre.

Genres: Westerns, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Classics, Audiobook, Adventure, Romance

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1906

About the author

Pearl Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. As of June 2007, the Internet Movie Database credits Grey with 110 films, one TV episode, and a series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater based loosely on his novels and short stories.

Reviews

[Kenneth Grossman · Rating 3 out of 5]

​
Spirit of the Border (1906) by Zane Grey (1872-1939) is a historical novel about the American frontier during the American War of Independence (1775 - 1783). At this time, the United States' frontier began at Fort Pitt (present-day Pittsburgh), and the Ohio River was a main artery to penetrate the thickly-forested, unsettled and dangerous west country. The region west of Fort Pitt was inhabited by Indians (mainly of the Delaware, Shawnee and Huron nations), who were being incited by the Detroit-based British against the rebellious American colonists. The action takes place around Fort Henry (Wheeling, West Virginia), an American outpost, and further west at the Moravian Monastery site (an actual place that is now a tourist site), where at that time there was an ongoing, somewhat successful effort to convert American Indians to Christianity. The region in the vicinity of the Moravian Mission was in fact contested by the British (supported by loyalists and Indians) and the rebellious American colonies and some Indians. Thus, anyone living in this grey region between the British and the colonists (including the missionaries) was suspect and therefore vulnerable; woe to those caught in-between.

At that time, the Indians were the major force in the region (though divided among themselves and manipulated by the whites). To appreciate how powerful the Indian nations were, one should recall that the greatest defeat of an American army by the Indians was not that of Custer in 1873, but occurred about ten years after the events in this book in 1791. At the Battle of the Wabash River (St. Clair's Defeat), an army of Indians inflicted about 1,000 casualties on the American army, killing about 650 (only 24 escaped unharmed). A hundred years earlier, Indians on the warpath in Virginia killed several thousand colonists. In between these large battles, thousands died on both sides. For many white men on the frontier, who had seen friends and relatives killed by Indians, distinctions between Indian friendlies and hostiles became blurred. Passions ran high, and this was a contributing cause of the Moravian Mission massacre.

The story begins with Joe Downs going west from Virginia to the border country. He is soon caught up in the zest, beauty and, yes, violence and danger of his new life. He is joined by his identical brother Jim (a dedicated preacher), who has also come west, together with two sisters of another preacher, as members of the proselytizing Moravian Mission. But this book has no happy end. All the protagonists experience the terror of the border country -- Joe and his Indian wife are killed by a renegade white man; one of the sisters is raped and dies. Jim is almost killed and the other sister almost raped.

The story's climax is the Moravian Mission massacre of several dozen defenseless Christian Indians (an actual event that occurred in 1783), who are herded into a few buildings and slaughtered (the actual figure was 96) and the buildings burned to the ground. Jim survives and marries the other sister, who barely escaped unharmed from a renegade white man. The couple chooses to continue living on the frontier but to lead a little less dangerous life at Fort Henry. This is the optimistic note at the end of the story.

Zane Grey writes about a region with which he is intimately familiar. He is a direct descendant of some of the people mentioned in the book, who founded settlements in the area that exist today. He tells us in an introduction that he even utilized a diary of one of his ancestors. As such, one can feel that this book, though fiction, is a labor of love. Almost all the personalities, even the main Indians, are actual historical personalities, as are all the white men mentioned by name.

It is unclear to me how much Zane Gray knew about the Moravian Mission massacre when he wrote this book, but the facts today, 110 years after publication of his book, seem rather different. The militia commander, Captain Williamson, had with him at the Moravian Mission 150 men not 80. Williamson did not, however, stand aside (as Zane Grey tells us) as Christian Indians were massacred by hostile Indians and renegade whites, the Girty brothers. On the contrary, Captain Williamson and his soldiers were the ones that committed the massacre of the Christian Indians (some soldiers refused to participate). Furthermore, the arch fiend in Grey's story, the renegade white man Jim Girty, was not killed as in the story, but rather appears to have later crossed the border with his brother into Canada (they were loyalists) and died there about 1820. The Girty's, it turns out, were prolific, and their descendants have made a concerted effort to rehabilitate their good name.

This book is a good read for those who enjoy the Western genre (as I do) and have some historical context regarding the events and personalities described (you can consult Wikipedia). A down side is that the characters tend to be idealized -- the good guys are good-natured, brave and beautiful; the bad guys are evil, cowards and ugly (well, at least, we don't have any trouble telling them apart). On the positive side, Zane Grey does make distinctions between the positions of the main Indian leaders as well as between the various white men, both good and bad. The attitudes of the Indians are rationalized and explained. Zane Grey writes without prejudice; whites marry Indians without any stigma. He even distinguishes between the personalities of Jim and Simon Girty.

Zane Grey is best when he describes the secrets of tracking and hunting and the pristine and natural beauty of the unsettled (by whites) forests. There is a brilliant episode where Lew Wetzel, the most skilled of the white frontiersmen, tracks Chief Wingenung through the forest with intent to kill him (both were real people). We have the following description:

"What was there? A twisted bit of fern, with the drops of dew brushed off. Bending beside the fern, Wetzel examined the grass; it was not crushed. A small plant with triangular leaves of dark green, lay under the fern. Breaking off one of these leaves, he exposed its lower side to the light. The fine, silvery hair of fuzz that grew upon the leaf had been crushed. Wetzel knew that an Indian could tread so softly as not to break the springy grass blades, but the under side of one of these leaves, if a man steps on it, always betrays his passage through the woods. To keen eyes this leaf showed that it had been bruised by a soft moccasin. Wetzel had located the trail, but was still ignorant of its direction. Slowly he traced the shaken ferns and bruised leaves down over the side of the ridge, and at last, near a stone, he found a moccasin-print in the moss."

In the end, Wetzel, after being led in circles, realizes that he has been outwitted. He is at a location where the Indian's footprints lead in two opposite directions!

In conclusion, Zane Gray does indeed capture the spirit of the men and women who went west into that dangerous and unpredictable border area: good people seeking a better life, adventure seekers, unscrupulous men and, yes, even the American Indians who they encountered and resisted them.

[Thom Swennes · Rating 3 out of 5]

With a spirit and tradition of stories by James Fenimore Cooper and a preamble to the works of Louis LÁmour, The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey fits comfortably between. Grey displays a ready talent in painting a detailed picture of the westward expansion and settlement of new lands by the still young United States. Some of the scenes appear very brutal but brutal were the times. He walks a precarious tightrope over the question of Manifest Destiny and ancient native claims to these new lands, but gives the advantage to neither. Although it isn’t among his best works, it is well worth the time and effort to read. You won’t be disappointed.

[Kerstin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second in the Ohio River trilogy, Zane Grey brings us back to the Ohio frontier in the year 1782. The westward expansion of settlers into the great forests of the Ohio region is not for the faint of heart. Taking a small slice out of the greater battleground of the American Revolution, Grey makes the climax of his story the massacre of the Moravian Mission (Gnadenhutten, Ohio), though his version is highly fictionalized. This clash of civilizations with missionaries, hunters, Native Americans and renegades is quite gritty, but it is balanced with beautiful descriptions of the forested landscape and the thrill and skill of surviving in the wilderness where Grey’s ability as a story teller really shines. As the narrative progresses the reader also gets a better sense that in this struggle there really are no winners and losers. Everyone on the frontier has experienced the savage cycle of bloodshed churned on by the unscrupulous. The lines of who is friend and who is foe becomes blurred and keeps shifting. Life gets stripped to the bare minimum, and at the end of the day it is a victory to have survived.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an intense book about native Americans becoming Christians and then being slain by their own people who were led by white renegades who hated Christianity. As always, Grey's writing is superb, classical, and precise. I only subtracted one star because the book didn't end like I wanted.

[Sheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the first and only Zane Grey I've ever given a one star review to. Usually I like his stuff just fine, don't mind his cliched characters or rambly descriptions, don't mind the fact that he fools with geography, and don't get too wound up with his ignorance when it comes to Native Americans. While reading Betty Zane, I was aware that he was fiddling with history, but mostly he seemed to be doing so to protect his family's reputation, or just seeing events through his particular romantic and secular lens. Betty Zane told the story as some who were there might have.

The Spirit of the Border, however, is not just a partisan version of history -- it completely reverses what actually happened! In this story the Gnadenhutten massacre of 1782 was committed by Indians led by renegade whites. In actual history the murderers were U.S. militiamen from Pennsylvania led by David Williamson. And in actual history there were no white Moravians present to be protected by the military: Simon Girty had caused enough trouble with the Americans the Moravian leaders had had to go defend themselves from his accusations.

Grey would have had easy access to the facts of what happened at Gnadenhutten -- George Henry Loskiel's History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America and John Heckewelder's A Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians both discuss the events in great detail, and there was more than ample evidence in secular histories that it was whites who killed the Moravian Native Americans -- but apparently reality didn't fit the story Grey wanted to tell.

Unfortunately, this time around Grey isn’t telling a very good story. The main characters are the look-alike Downs brothers, and not only do the other characters keep mixing them up, so do I. It doesn't help that one brother is Joe and the other Jim, and then there's a Jim Girty, who is a bad guy, and a Jim Blair, not to mention a Jake and a Jeff, all of whom show up in the first thirty pages or so. There are two sisters I can't keep straight, either, except for the fact that both brothers want the one and don't care about the other.

None of these characters are well-drawn, however we are told that Joe has a history of treating women lightly and is a bit of a bad boy, while Jim is quiet and proper and means to be a minister. The Wells sisters are a tad easier to keep track of, because we mostly see Nell, and she’s generally fussing or stomping her feet or kissing the “wrong” brother. Kate is much more passive, however both sisters are woefully prone to fainting under pressure.

Joe's personality is similar to that of the average Grey hero, except more annoying, but his journey can be interesting. When the story focuses on Jim, however, it manages to be both boring and, for those who know much of anything about the pertinent history and religion, outright infuriating. Jim is supposedly a Moravian pastor, and Moravians are a German Protestant group whose origin predates Martin Luther by sixty years. For some reason Grey decides to share the entirety of Jim’s first sermon to the Indians, which unfortunately is some weird twentieth century secular version of the Pilgrim/Puritan tradition, not Moravian. For example, Jim says God's chosen tribe is the palefaces and that God "made the palefaces wiser and wiser, and master of the world. He bid them go afar to teach the ignorant tribes."

While I am sure there were nominal Christians in Zane Grey's era who believed that, I'm equally sure it was not something the Moravians would say to Indians. Even the Pilgrims, who saw their American settlement as "a city on a hill" and a demonstration of God's way to the world, would not say the "palefaces" were God's chosen tribe, because they fled to America to get away from the wickedness of the European world! Despite the reader hearing this sermon and numerous conversations between the Christian characters, Jesus is never mentioned by name in this book, and barely mentioned at all.

In actual Moravian writings from the time, and in the sermons they report giving to Native Americans, Jesus is the primary subject, and the loyalty people owe God for their sinful acts not far behind. The Moravians would also be insulted by Grey's implication that Jim’s terrific sermons inspire chiefs to become Christians; in actual fact, their first convert was a drunkard, and Loskiel and Heckwelder both recognize that it was the changed lives of the converts that got the leaders interested in considering Christianity.

I suspect Heckwelder would also feel insulted at the way he is portrayed as being far more interested in new converts than in tending his current flock. The Indians don't come off a whole lot better. Betty Zane suffered from the "Pocahontas problem" of an Indian woman willing to pitch everything for the love of a white man, but for the most part Indians in that book were minor side kicks or mostly off stage bad guys. In this book, Indian characters are often front and center, as the various chiefs dispute amongst themselves, et cetera, but they have no more depth and are no more accurately portrayed than the Moravians.

Plus Grey has a bad habit of blending Indian tribes and traditions. For instance, Jim gives his long sermon before a group of mixed Indian tribes: Wyandots – of the Iroquoian language family – along with Shawnee and Delaware (Lenape) – of the Algonquin language family. But this linguistic challenge means nothing to Our Hero: he addresses them “in the Indian language.” Nor is he the only white man who knows this mysterious tongue -- some of the other missionaries use it, as does Colonel Zane.

Grey's Indian characters tend to fall into four types: noble and responsible leaders; evil but courageous leaders; beautiful daughters of a chief who love a particular white man; and an amorphous mass of ordinary people and servants who may get assigned a name but he clearly sees as inferior sorts of people. Which doesn't usually bother me, since his white characters are equally cliched, but in a story about the massacre of a number of Native Americans, this grates a bit. Grey names a number of chiefs from the time, but he makes it very clear he doesn't think much of the Christian characters, meaning that the 96 Native American Christians who were actually murdered in the second Gnadenhutten massacre are pretty much reduced to unnamed and indistinguishable background characters in their own story.

Which I suppose is a big part of why this book so annoys me.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last book in the Zane Ohio River Trilogy is an essential read if you have read the other two that precede: Betty Zane and The Last trail. This edition continues with the characters introduced in the prior "episodes" most of which are supporting actors, however. Famed frontiersman and border man extraordinaire Lew Wetzel aka Deathwind to the Delawares, Huron, etc. plays a primary role in this story educating a sidekick/companion how to navigate the wood and prairie surrounding Indian lands and trails without leaving footsteps or broken twigs behind. The Zane hospitality comes through again loud and clear in the form of Jonathan-the least social of the clan making it even more interesting. The heart-warming ending adds to its charm and provides good closure.

"Once more Wetzel became a tiger. The hot blood leaped from his heart, firing all his veins and nerves. But calmly noiselessly, certain, cold, deadly as a snake he began the familiar crawling method of stalking his game.... The Delaware's life was his to take, and he swore he would have it! He trembled in the ecstasy of his triumphant passion: his great muscles rippled and quivered for the moment entirely beyond his control."

Caveat in many ways the authors attitude towards Native Americans reflects the times yet at the same time is able to give respect and honor where it is due based on collaborations with specific tribal leaders and/physical prowess and abilities that make many standouts in their time.

[Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second part of Zane Grey’s Ohio River Trilogy, which is about the conflicts resulting from pioneers venturing west of the Allegany Mountains in the 1780s.These pioneers settle along the Ohio River and come into conflict with the native Indians. These early pioneers include farmers, hunters, soldiers and missionaries. White men also ally with the Indians to make a profit on whiskey and gun sales. Many characters are based upon the author’s family as the Zane’s are well represented in these stories. There are several human-interest stories of love, revenge and adventure interwoven into the western expansion story. The action scenes are plentiful and well written.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tale set sometime after the Revolutionary War in the late 18th century. It involves frontiersmen, missionaries, and natives, all clashing on the border between European settlers and American Indians. The viewpoints are perhaps somewhat stereotypical, and the characters lacking some dimension, but it was a believable read, with not all the "good guys" surviving nor all the "bad guys" getting their just reward. Only the second Zane Grey novel I've read. Like the first, it kept me engaged but was not riveting. A solid work. 3 stars.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is book two of what is called the Ohio River Trilogy, the first being Betty Zane. These books are apparently from a journal of Zane Greys grandmother, so reading them one feels the depth of the hardship of "border life" more fervently. Saying that I enjoyed these books would be true, but for the knowledge that many Native Americans were wronged on so many levels. It does offer a descriptive and realistic lens to view this period of settlement in the West. Zane Grey is a prolific descriptive author who evokes the spirit of his characters and the hard realities of pioneer life.

[Beautiful Beulah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first Zane Grey book. I read about this author in another book where the character read his books. I like westerns and frontier life, so I wanted to give it a go. I went into it knowing it wasn’t going to be written like the books I normally read, which is historical fiction by authors today. I ended up pleasantly surprised.

Even though it was written differently than I’m used to, I still enjoyed it. It was a simple read with wonderful scenery descriptions and likable characters. I liked the adventure of it all. It was fun and filled with action and danger.

[Catherine Lowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this, the second of the Ohio Frontier Trilogy, Grey develops the character of Wetzel, introduced in Betty Zane. Grey's descriptions of the forest frontier are beautiful. The preaching at the mission village made me wonder if it really captured the attitudes of the time--I can't imagine anyone being converted by the words and actions of the missionaries. I picked these books up because of historical interest surrounding the Ohio Territory in the late 18th century, and was not disappointed. A fast-paced and entertaining read!

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read when I was a kid - junior high age or so. The second in Grey's Ohio River trilogy, it paints in vivid colors the clash of civilizations that took place in the late 18th century during the Revolutionary War on the frontier. Moravian missionaries were there trying with some success to convert Indians to Christianity. There were massacres on both sides. Based on actual events, involving the author's Zane family ancestors.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable book.

Zane Grey knows how to make you feel like you are right there and can see everything that is happening. He makes the surrounding a very important part of the story. Other writers should read his works. This story gives an idea what life was like on the frontier and how hard it was. Read Zane Grey’s books.

[John Lietzke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of Spirit of the Border by ,John Lietzke

They story was great. I enjoy stories about frontier life of early Americans of the late 1700s and early 1800s. I did think the author dwelled too long on Christianity.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic western novel

[Llwright9020 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story.

[Christopher Ramsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caught my interest immediately, and couldn't wait to read more everyday.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun story with good characters and action.
Did not realize that this was #2 in the series. Now I'll have to go back and read #1.

[Lloyd Hinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another interesting book by Zane Grey

[Richard Koerner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved it. Couldn’t wait to read it. A little history and a lot of Zane Grey.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thrilling story of the frontier and the battle of good and evil in complex characters.

[Joleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another book by Zane Grey based on past relatives of his from the 1700s. They were the Zane family, some of who lived at Fort Henry, some of which enjoyed being out in the wild, and some who kill Indians. There had been a peaceful treaty recently, but there are still Indians encouraged by renegade white men to fight against peaceful white people including a missionary village.
Kidnapping and brutality are subjects in the book. One man in particular (Jim Gurty) was an extremely evil white renegade/turned Indian, who would kidnap women use them and beat them. Many people feared him, many people wanted him dead because of his brutality. Lew Wetzel was the famous Indian hunter who set out to help a number of people who worked with the missionaries, who had been abducted by Jim Gurty.
The Saga that followed all of this was amazing. Once again the language was old-fashioned and not as easy flowing as today's language. A couple of incidents were pretty graphically violent, nothing I particularly wanted to read as I'm going to sleep. Sigh!
There was a horrible incident that happened in the church of the missionary compound, and to some degree it's the truth. These missionary compounds are in history books, but the incident where the Christian Indians were murdered was slightly different. In reality the Christian Indians were sent to find food and bring it back to the place where they were forced to move. Marauders and the US Army came across the Indiana fetching food from their former compound, and decided to kill them because they didn't trust them. Very sad. I read the historic account.
Anyway good book if you can get past the dialog.

[Larry Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is allegedly a historical novel about the opening of the "west". Only, we're at the end of the 18th century, and the "west" means whatever is west of Pittsburgh (well, Fort Pitt in those days). Apparently, some of the material comes from some papers Zane Grey found in his family's archives.

So, we begin with a group heading off down the Ohio River from Fort Pitt into the "west" to become missionaries, or famous frontiersmen. The party includes Jim and Joe Downs, Jim a missionary wanna be, and Joe a frontiersman wanna be. We also have Nell and Kate Wells who are accompanying their uncle, Mr. Wells, who is a missionary proper. They're heading to a village of peace set up by Moravian missionaries. The point is to civilize the "savages" by converting them into Christians and by teaching them agriculture and useful trades.

But, there are, of course, complications. There are evil "white Indians", most notably Simon Girty. They are depraved white men who live with the Indians and who try to stir up trouble, and of course, steal and traffic white women when they can.

Well, I'll stop here. It was a mildly interesting story, albeit hideously racist. No crap, the Indians (Native Americans in modern parlance) say things like, "Ugh!" Also, we're told more than once that the only good Indian is a dead one. Interestingly, there is an admission buried away to the effect that one of the reasons the Indians are somewhat restive is because the white men have come and stolen their lands. An interesting admission for a book written more than a hundred years ago when we were all over manifest destiny and such.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I inherited two Zane Grey books from long ago but this is the first time I’ve read anything by him. I can’t speak on historical accuracy regarding the Ohio River Valley in the years after the American Revolution, but I was a bit disappointed that the library didn’t have the first book in the trilogy. There is some substantial violence, more than I would have expected from a book published in 1906, but some of the rapes and murders either happen off-stage or are not described explicitly. It wasn’t as anti-Native American as I was expecting from a book written at that time period, with good and bad guys on both sides, and some of the characters were fleshed out pretty well. The things I didn’t like were the episodes that got confusing when they muddled the timeline or seemed to mix up numerous characters. Another is a scene when a missionary is preaching to the indigenous. It had me thinking “damn, when is this chapter going to end?” Be warned of the high body count and the missionaries being treated as good guys.

[Kathie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would be willing to give this book a 3.5 stars. Since it was written so long ago, there are passages that were acceptable then but not politically correct at this time, especially in reference to the Native American population.

Grey always writes beautiful descriptions. The Ohio territory and the settling of it he describes are particularly harsh. Hatred, killing, abductions, and other cruelties exist throughout. The author seemed well informed about learning to live in the wilderness and tracking game as well as humans. He didn't hesitate to kill off some of the central characters.

I was interested in reading this book because my ancestors, like so many others, settled for a time in Ohio. Through my genealogical searches, I have learned a little about the hardships they faced. Zane Grey's writing made me even more sympathetic to their struggles.

[Larry V. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exciting and thought-provoking novel!

The first time I have read a Zane Grey novel, but hopefully not the last. Caution: this novel does present some Native Americans in stereotypical terms. But as I read past them, I found that Dr. Grey actually quite understood that the frontier and its Native American owners could have been treated with respect and dignity and that the land should not have been stolen from these various tribes of intelligent, spiritual, and hard working people. For being written in 1906, I believe that Dr. Grey held quite enlightened views.
The story itself was captivating and hard to put down!

[Amy Schmelzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall well written. I picked it up for June on the Range.

However, there are two things that bothered me about this 118-year-old book. Christians have a God-given edict to convert the Indians living in Ohio to Christianity. It’s acceptable for a white man to kill an Indian whose sole crime is being born Indian. I do not agree with either of those statements although I understand that they were “truths” to those living in 1870s Ohio.

One thing I did like was the author’s use of geographical place names. I recognized Coshocton as well as the Muskingum River even though their historical spellings were different.

[Gene Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have heard of Zane Grey my whole life. I have read McMurtry and L’Amour. Grey pales in comparison. I have read the first two of this Trilogy. I picked it as my trip into Zane Grey because I live in the Ohio Valley. I will read the third book. That will end this exploration. His writing about the love stories is extremely weak. I believe women that came into the frontier had to be tougher people than depicted by Zane Grey. I thought the most interesting thing about the book is were the name Zane originated.

[Leon Olivier, Jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy this series of books for two reasons. 1- many of the characters are real people. 2- A family history of the period was used to add realism. The settling of the Ohio river basin was one of the earliest westward expansions and a violent one. While the book touches on the problems that it cause the native tribes of the region it gives a negative picture of many of them. Remember- this is an older book and holding it to modern standards is unfair to the author.
Check out David McCullough book The Pioneers if you want to learn more about this time period.

[S. Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished The Spirit of the Border today. It was such a beautiful, sad, yet wonderful story, and I would highly reccomend it. It's about two brothers, Jim and Joe, one a Christian missionary trying to convert the Indians, the other a troublemaking Indian hunter. They both love the same girl, and she likes both of them for their own unique personalities. Who will win her heart? I really loved this story, and would consider it one of Zane Grey's best.