When Chad and his family flee to a fort in the Tennessee wilderness to escape an attack by Chickamauga Indians, the presence of the family of a white renegade who joined the Indians causes additional tensions.
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Chickamauga raiding parties were on the warpath once more in the Tennessee mountains! Chad Rabun's family, along with the other settlers, fled their unprotected cabin and raced for the safety of the wilderness fort. But one family group—Mrs. Logan and her children—was anything but welcome. Chad could understand this, for Mrs. Logan's husband was a white renegade who had gone over to the Indians.
Young Chad could see nothing wrong with Josiah, the eldest Logan boy, but he refused to make friends with him despite Josiah's shy overtures. Chad figured he was probably just as bad as his father. As the water supply dwindled, the settlers' bitterness against the Logans grew. Why should a traitor's family share the precious water? Why not put them out? The argument raged, and then—
Attack! With fire arrows and by scaling the stockade, the Indians sought to destroy the fort. Almost too late, Chad found that Josiah was as courageous and loyal as any man there, and he learned, too, how wrong it is to condemn anyone for the misdeeds of another.
This is more than a taut, authentic, action-filled narrative of pioneer days in Tennessee. It is a story in which real and unforgettable people face problems that they must solve, or perish—problems that are just as important in our world today. Boys will be swept along by the drama and excitement of this remarkably fine book; the lesson they learn with Chad will remain with them for a long time.
This is a splendid companion to such earlier books as The Lone Hunt, Wilderness Journey, and Winter Danger, for which Mr. Steele has deservedly won wide critical acclaim as well as an eager reading public.
—from the dust jacket
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