Treasure Mountain

The Sacketts #15

by Louis L'Amour

How do you bring a million dollars in gold down a mountain? First you have to find it, and that's mighty hard when you're tracking a trail that is twenty years old. But the Sackett brothers were determined to find the treasure and to discover if their father, who blazed the trail long ago, was still alive. They just hoped they were smarter than those New Orleans folks who also wanted the gold—and were willing to kill for it.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Historical, Mystery, Audiobook

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1972

About the author

Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, though he called his work "frontier stories". His most widely known Western fiction works include Last of the Breed, Hondo, Shalako, and the Sackett series. L'Amour also wrote historical fiction (The Walking Drum), science fiction (The Haunted Mesa), non-fiction (Frontier), and poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. His books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death, almost all of his 105 existing works (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".

Reviews

[Jacob Proffitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite story so far, I think. Some of that is time spent in my favorite city (New Orleans)—a good quarter of the book is Tell and Orrin bumbling about in the French Quarter. Some of it is this being the first one I actually remember bits of from my young reading days. But most of it is a great story with a solid through-line upon which to hang the now-familiar characters.

This actually broke down in the last fifth of the book, or so (which is why I can't quite bring myself to five stars). At that stage, you'd pretty much run out of suspects so the final culprit was dead obvious. Tell not figuring it out before facing him over the inevitable show-down-shoot-out was more than a little contrived. Not only was he the last possible suspect, but Tell conveniently forgot where he'd seen his tracks before, and where he'd heard his voice before, he couldn't be bothered to ask Nell what the culprit looked like (because she'd run him off in a direct confrontation), and did I mention he was literally the last possible suspect? L'Amour tried to muddy it some because there were two potentials about but a) Hippo Swan had already been revealed as not-a-woodsman and kind of stupid and b) Philip, while revealed to be bloodthirsty and all, was described as slight and wouldn't have the heft for the tracks Tell found. Every other suspect could be eliminated on the grounds they couldn't be plausibly involved twenty years ago.

So not a mystery writer, our Louis L'Amour.

Still, a great tale and probably why Tell is my favorite Sackett (even if he can't keep a woman from one book to the next). I'm really hoping things work out with Nell. That's the romantic in me. Only two books to go, so can even L'Amour screw it up this time?

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story. Action throughout. Orrin and Tell Sackett go to New Orleans to investigate what happened to their father who disappeared twenty years ago. They discover the evil Bastion family may have something to do with it. Orrin is kidnapped, Tell comes to the rescue and they set out with Tinker a mysterious gypsy and a voodoo priest to find out what happened to their father.

They find Nativity Pettigrew who was with their father to find a treasure with members of the Bastion family who are also following them. Excellent descriptions of magnificent scenery, ambushes and a Trelaney girl that likes Tell along with her giant mastiff dog. The discovery of their fathers diary helps them to a final showdown high in the mountains.

[Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes it's refreshing to read a simply-written, down-to-earth book written by a male author. The style is just so different, and the understated perspective of the narrator actually becomes amusing. The story itself, set in New Orleans and "west," in the mountains of Colorado in the 1870s, is interesting and quite mysterious (really, the story is more mystery than adventure, although both elements are present). Tell, the narrator, is blunt and not especially effusive, but he is somewhat of a philosopher, and he gives great insight into his feelings, opinions, and motivations.

There is a mild bit of romance--mostly just Tell matter-of-factly bemoaning the lack thereof--but honestly, the most interaction between man and woman is actually with the non-romantic partner. The romance, though a legitimate part of the resolution to Tell's story, is almost entirely implied at the end.

There is one plot point that is either not tied up, or intentionally thrown in to throw detective-readers off the trail. Other than that, though, it was a pretty good mystery.

[Nickie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something interesting here if you are a Harry Potter reader. There are two characters called Pettigrew and Trelawney. Did Rowling read L'Amour books?

[*Stani* · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the beginning of this book a lot and then it veers off into the same cookie cutter Louis L’Amour mountain territory we all know and at this point have to love to keep reading.

!!Spoilers ahead!!

The story starts in New Orleans where Orrin Sackett arrives in search of what has happened to heir father when he went into the mountains as a guide to a group of wealthy gold hunters and never returned.

When a few days later Orrin’s brother Tell arrives and can’t find his missing brother, he knows something is afoot.

Now he has to figure out who is after them and why the people who kidnapped Orrin don’t want the Sacketts sniffing around and finding out the truth behind their father’s disappearance.

****
Like I said, story started great. We had a new location, missing father that went off into the mountains to accompany a gold seekers and has never returned.

Then Orrin disappears and the plot thickens. That is, however, quickly resolved and then we have just the same old, same old story of greed, betrayal, gold in the mountains, bad guys going after the Sackett brothers.

There is a girl, of course, but this time she is no damsel in distress but rather a self sufficient bad ass, who is trying to pan for gold up in the mountains, alone with a mule and a giant bushy dog that keeps her company and guards her.

That actually elevated the whole story line, as I enjoy a strong and independent female characters, especially in a male dominated western books.

Overall some good parts, some recycled storylines from previous ones. Not bad, not great either.

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the beginning of this book, struggled through the middle and just wanted it to end by the time I got near the finish. I liked meeting the Sacketts. The timeline of the story was a little unbelievable and the level of detail of hiking through the mountain trails dragged on and on. The resolution of what happened to their father and what might have happened to that gold took too long for a book this short.

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've seen any of my Louis L'Amour reviews you probably already know that I read at least one of his books every year around Christmas. On the train to Chicago. Well, no Chicago this year and no train. As covid-19 has shut down most of the activities we enjoy there.
But, I'm still going to read and enjoy my Sacketts book.
This wasn't my favorite Louis L'Amour book but still a darn good ripping yarn.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s nothing like a Louis L’Amour novel. They may be formulaic celebrations of rugged individualism, but L’Amour was a master storyteller and his descriptions of the West are marvelous. I pick one up every year or so and each one is fun to read. Treasure Mountain, part of the Sackett saga, lived up to my expectations.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orrin Sackett is in New Orleans when he meets a woman who decides that she wants his money. When he returns to the mountains in the West, greedy men and a woman track him. Orrin and Tell are trying to find the final resting place of their father who disappeared twenty years earlier.

[Tim Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book finalizes many things. I am so glad i read this great series of stories. Highly recomend. One more book to go.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Treasure Mountain by Louis L'Amour

Enjoyed it like every other L'Amour I've read. Je paints pictures in your mind that puts you right next his characters and situations.

[Jay Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tell and Orrin start this adventure in New Orleans and are in search of information about their father and the gold shipment that he was looking for. They stir up trouble from persons who want the gold themselves. They are joined by the Tinker (a character in many of his books) and a black man named Judas Priest. (Yes, the band Judas Priest got the name of their band from this character's name.)They go in search and they receive many answers and Tell falls for a Cumberland girl.

[Lori Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's nothing like a good Sackett story. This definitely is a good one.

[Daniel Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
As usual, a "hard to put down" Louis L'Amour book.

[Jacque · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This was actually one of my favorite Louis L’amour books as far as the story line, but it drags out at the end.

[Bob Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked the book one of better books that Louis Lamour wrote with Sacketts characters.

[Oleta Blaylock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well I am getting close to finishing the Sackett series and I am very sad. I really do wish that Louis L'Amour had lived long enough to finish what he had planned. I have loved each of these stories. So much of the country he writes about is country that I have live in or around. I guess that is one of the reasons that my Mom loved these stories so much. Louis L'Amour's books were one of the few things that we shared a great love for.

So this story is about Orrin and Tell trying to find out how their father died and why. About the first third of the story is set in New Orleans. Now New Orleans is one of the cities I would love to visit. I have read a number of books in various series that are set in that city on the Gulf Coast. Anyway New Orleans is where their Dad set off on the last foray into the western lands. He was leading a group after a cache of gold left by the French military. The story follows that boys west as they try to recreate the path that their father probably followed.

There is a brief part where Tyrel shows up but it is not more than a chapter. Tyrel is trying to get things together so they can all move to the La Plata River country of Colorado. The whole family is hoping to find a good ranch and settle down close to the other Sacketts that have moved west.

We meet another Trelawney girl and she seems to set her cap for Tell. It would be nice to finally have Tell settle down with someone to care for and to be cared about by someone. It would also be nice for Orrin to find a lady that would love him.

There are the usual battles, horse rustlers and just bad people that think they are tougher than anyone else. There is also the description of some of the prettiest country around. There is so much variety in the four corners area. Blazing desert, soaring mountains and beautiful valleys. Anyone that loves Louis L'Amour books is going to love this story.

[Scott Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

My wife and I listened to this book on tape while driving through Utah on vacation. I love Louis L'Amour novels, however my wife had never read any of his westerns, now she's hooked. This story is one of 11 Sackett family chronicle novels and the setting alternates between French New Orleans and the Colorado mountains. As usual, the story is riveting. However what I like most about Louis L'Amour novels are his cultural euphemisms and especially his research. This novel includes references to historical figures (Abraham Lincoln as a "loser who overcame"), birds, botany and word etymology. An example of the latter: the term dixie originated from the French word for ten ("dix"), which was found on New Orleans ten dollar notes. Louis L'Amour is a great western novelist, and this story is one of his finest. Highly recommended!

[Rosalind · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't had a chance to read all the novels written about the Sacketts but I absolutely love it when they show up in a novel I'm reading. This was my first introduction of them as they travel to New Orleans trying to discover what happened to their father. I love their courage, integrity, and most of all the way they stick together and protect one another.

The insight into the life of cowboys is fun to read. I love imagining what it was like to sleep under the stars, to follow tracks, and to be so in tune with nature that they can read signs and seemingly follow the trail taken by their father so many years before.

Another great read! Can't wait to get my hands on the other Sackett novels.

[Blake B · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I chose is Treasure Mountain by Louis L'Amour. The book is set in the 1870s or the 1880s the setting of the book at first is New Orleans but it then moves up the Mississippi river an over land to the San Juan mountains.The two main chacters are Orrin and Trell Sackett. The two main characters are brothers. They went to New Orleans to find out what way there father went after leading there father left guiding a group of men who were in search of a long lost shipment of gold.The brothers pickup the trail an start out only to realize they are being followed.Will bbn they make it to Treasure Mountain and find out what happened to there father ?

[James Biser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this is not the last book concerning the Sacketts written by L'Amour, it is my favorite. Tell and Orrin Sackett track down a gold treasure found by their father and learn the history of his adventure procuring the hidden gold. They are accompanied in this hunt by family and associates such as the Tinker. This is a great book. It should be read by everyone, but not until they are familiar with the Sackett cast of characters.

[Scott Lyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

No man should go down the long way without leaving something behind him, and I'll I've got to leave will disappear when the dust settles. A man can carve from stone, he can write fine words, or he can do something to hold himself in the hearts of people. I hadn't done any of those things, not yet. Maybe I never would.

[D. E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An LL western action adventure with Sackett brothers searching for and finding hidden gold. They find the old but have a very difficult time retrieving the gold and then there is the problem of getting it down the mountain. There are numerous men that become aware of the gold and they want it. His is an excellent read for the genre.....DEHS

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good western with a murder mystery twist. Tell Sackett was searching for the story of what happened to his father twenty years ago. Along the way he and his brothers make some friends... and some enemies.

I always enjoy reading about Tell Sackett. And this was a good book with a good plot.

[Timothy Farrington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read!

I have been reading L`Amour for 50 years and still enjoy every yarn an' jibe! You'll be able to feel the saddle under your "bum" and smell the pine off the mountain when your read L`Amour's books! Enjoy!

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great addition to the Sackett's I liked learning more about their pa. This was a good read.

[Paul F. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even the very best authors can write a clunker now and then. "Treasure Mountain" by Louis L'Amour falls into that category, unfortunately. You would think that a novel about the Sacketts (Orrin and Tell this time, primarily) would be full of Western adventure and compelling action. This novel unfortunately fell flat for me, for several reasons. For starters, a good quarter of the novel takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans is not a Western city. One of the major characters is simply named "the Tinker". People have names, and "the Tinker" is not a name, which results in this character being important but faceless. Then there's Nell Trelawney. I thought for awhile that she would be an engaging Western Romance figure for the novel. Instead, she was mere window-dressing and barely that. Romance between Nell and Tell never got off the ground, extremely frustrating for me as a reader. And then, I'm never a fan of first person narration, especially when it is combined, cumbersomely, with third person narration. Maybe I'm too much of a literalist, but I always wonder, is the first person narrator writing in a diary, dictating a memoir, or what, exactly, that enables him to speak directly to the reader?
Oh yes, the story. It seems that after 20 years (well, better late than never), the Sacketts, or Orrin. Tell and their mom anyway, want to know how their father and husband died, apparently looking for some buried gold in the mountains of Southern Colorado that some French soldiers had left there for uncertain reasons. Problem is, Andre, Fanny, and Phillip Baston might know something about how Pa Sackett died, something they would rather that Tell Sackett not discover. What that "something" is, was never quite clear to me. Anyway, Andre Baston (among others) chases after Tell Sackett into the mountains. There is a compelling gunfight scene, with entertaining sarcastic narration from Tell, the only redeeming quality of this novel. Is Pa Sackett still alive? If so, can he be found and returned to civilization? Suffice to say, Tell Sackett finds out the answer to this question, although not in a way that most readers will find a satisfying ending. If L'Amour ever wrote a followup story about Nell Trelawney, that will likely be far more page-turning, engaging entertainment than this clunker. Readers can skip "Treasure Mountain" and frankly not miss much, in my humble opinion.

[Barbara Lee Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

MEN AT OUR BACK

The Sackett Brothers, William Tell and Orrin finally located their father's grave, and the "GOLD" he had buried was found by Orrin. Now hopefully the brothers will have enough gold to take care of the family, especially their Mother who will be sad that her husband is buried in one and not scattered all over the mountain which happens when they are left unburied.
Tell Sackett seems to be lonely for a woman whom he can settle down with, but that star seems to be out of his reach. He compares his qualities with his other brothers, and he seems to feel they have a better chance because they know how to talk to the opposite sex, whereas he gets tongue tied and says the wrong things. Tell
is a thinker, you know a strategies, who thinks of how can he get out of tight situations. He's deadly with his pistolas, a rifle. He can speak a bit of French, mexican spanish which he compared to the proper spanish spoke in Spain and New Orleans. He seems to clean up well when he goes out to dinner in New Orleans. He isn't ashamed to admit he gets scared. He describes how beautiful the Rocky Mountains and the other mountains he names. He respectful of others, and their beliefs especially the Native Americans. Like his father said, time waits on no one and change is coming and you have to accept it and move on or get left or die. These Sackett Men are men to ride the river with or back you up in in a tight spot..Men and women raised in the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky....who took care of their families and kin....

[Joshua Riding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by saying I genuinely enjoy Louis L’amour; the way he writes, how he really puts an image of the sweeping vistas of the west, the intensity of shootouts into your mind is an impressive feat of writing. The way he was captured the West in novel form is second to none. That being said, I wouldn’t recommend his longer series, as his writing style really feels intended for standalone books, where he can meander through so many details and narratives and end well. I could tell that with this one, it being last in the series, that he was almost trying to put off its end for just a few more pages to hit some arbitrary count. I’ve read Lonesome Gods previously; I can’t recall this being an issue with that particular novel. I may go back and edit this review after reading more of Louis L’amour, particularly reading the Sackett brothers series from beginning to end, but for now I can only really recommend this book to avid Western fans and those who don’t mind a book that takes its time getting to the end.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one kept me up too late with one of those pleasurable occasions when there is simply no good place to stop reading. The story is fast-paced, full of great characters, exciting action and some nifty plot twists.

Tell and Orrin Sackett are in New Orleans, trying to find information about their father, who disappeared 20 years earlier. This, in turn, leads to a journey towards the possible location of hidden gold. Their Dad, it turns out, had accompanied a treasure-hunting expedition as a guide, but members of that expedition eventually turned on one another.

So the Sackett boys are pursued by villains who are still after that gold, while trying to track down clues and signs from 20 years ago to find out what happened to their father.

Most of the book is from Tell's point-of-view, though its nice to see Orrin get a few Moments of Awesome (he was a little overshadowed by Tyrell in an earlier book). The ending, with Tell surrounded by bad guys atop a mountain, but determined to bring the fight to them despite being outnumbered, leads to a superb action set piece.