Becky Landers

Becky Landers, being the man of the family, knew that if there was to be turkey on the Christmas dinner table, she would have to provide it.

Although Becky's 16-year-old brother had been taken by Indians in the past year, and Becky's father savagely slain on their earlier journey to the frontier woods of Kentucky, Becky has indomitable spunk. For the moment, it inspires her determination to go after a turkey outside the town walls of Maybrook. But for the long range, Becky has more ambitious plans, born of her unquenchable hope that Rodney, her brother, yet survives.

In the year 1778, as the War for Independence rages, Becky forms a plan to join the audacious Captain George Rogers Clark on his daredevil mission to win the British holdings at Kaskaskia and Vincennes. She hopes to rescue her brother near Kaskaskia. Naturally, she will meet every form of resistance to such an outrageous initiative from a 15-year-old girl.

This vivid and well-researched novel paints, in the author's words, "a composite picture of communal and family life in Kentucky with its forts, its cabins, its sports and customs, as well as of the sterner life of its warriors and hunters" and shows us "the heroic part played by the women and the young girls." We are memorably introduced to the historic figures of Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Simon Kenton, the Frenchman De Quindre, the Indian Black Fish and others, who interweave with Becky's adventures in as colorful a manner as their actual personalities deserve.

Becky Landers, being the man of the family, knew that if there was to be turkey on the Christmas dinner table, she would have to provide it. And the younger members of the household had decreed turkey. With Ted, aged seven, and Ruth, aged five and a half, the point was already settled. Their mother only said,

"It would be nice to give them what they want at Christmas time. There's so little we can give the children in Kentucky—except peril."

Becky's throat contracted sharply. Mrs. Landers was a devoted and a companionable mother to all her children, but her eldest, Rodney, had been a little closer to her than the others, perhaps because her husband's death had made her so much more dependent upon her son. On the frontier a boy of sixteen was a man, a hunter, a soldier, a provider and a strong arm of protection.

In these first years of the Revolution a blood-red shadow was cast of Kentucky. That fierce warrior and prophet, Dragging Canoe, has warned the first white men who had purchased land in the red man's "Beloved Old Fields" that they would find it a "dark and bloody ground." Whole settlements had been wiped out, men, women, and children slain or carried away" and a few saved and adopted into the tribe.

"Mother," Becky said, gently, "we all know how the Indians love strength and courage and a handsome look. They didn't kill Rod, Mother. I know they didn't. I just know it."