This is a story in the Sackett family series giving the reader a brief initial looking into the early manhood of Kin Sackett the first-born son of Barnabas Sackett. Kin is the oldest and he and Yance the second son are in the west collecting furs and tending to a corn crop that Kin has planted. They receive a summons from a wounded Indian that Yances wife’s sister has been abducted and another young woman with her. The story is that Indians abducted them but that is soon proven to be false.
Diana Macklin is a young woman who knows her own mind and is much admired by Carrie Penny. Diana is a plant collector and she using them to make medicines. She also talks to the Indians and takes their information on plant remedies and increases her ability to cure and heal with these plants and herbs. Being a loner and enamored by the night she is labeled a witch by the people in the settlement. If her father had not been such a scholar they would have probably driven her from their settlement.
Yance and Kin search out their trail and come within sight as the two girls and a slave runaway and hide in the woods as the kidnappers tramp around trying to find them. Things progress and the story has some twists and turns as Kin strikes out for the Indie’s to try and end the traffic in stolen white girls. In this adventure he has many ups and downs. Traps were sprung and murder was attempted but Kin survived and won the hand of Diana.
Heading back to home ground things continue to happen and the newly wed couple strive to write the wrongs and until the last chapter you do not see how they will survive.
This is a typically good book giving the reader more insight and background knowledge into the Sackett family and how they continue to think about the land that they have been born to. I recommend this book to the western readers who desire the characters that have strength of vision and convictions to make things happen.
