The Ranch at the Wolverine

356 p. Billy Louise has given up her childhood play and her schooling in order to run the ranch near the Wolverine River after her father dies in an accident. One winter she takes Ward, a young cowboy with mysterious past, to her ranch to work as hired man. After Ward shares his secret with Billy, strange events start to trail-worn oxen, their necks bowed to the yoke of patient servitude, should really begin this story. But to follow the trail they made would take several chapters which you certainly would skip-unless you like to hear the tale of how the wilderness was tamed and can thrill at the stern history of those who did the taming while they fought to keep their stomachs fairly well filled with food and their hard-muscled bodies fit for the fray. There was a woman, low-browed, uncombed, harsh of voice and speech and nature, who drove the four oxen forward over lava rock and rough prairie and the scanty sage. I might tell you a great deal about Marthy, who plodded stolidly across the desert and the low-lying hills along the Blackfoot; and of her weak-souled, shift-less husband whom she called Jase, when she did not call him worse. They were the pioneers whose lurching wagon first forded the singing Wolverine stream just where it greens the tiny valley and then slips between huge lava-rock ledges to join the larger stream. Very good in very good dust jacket. light shelfwear, no ownership marks, a bit of edgewear and chipping to the jacket which is now protected in nice brodart.…