Ricky's friends' were allowed to have their own rods, but would his parents let him in on the fun? Heck no! So here he was, the only guy in Dellville without his own set of wheels, the town "car suck." His friend Link said he ought to threaten to leave home. That worked for Link; he had his rod. But Ricky's parents weren't so easily bluffed, and though his father finally did decide that Ricky should be allowed to have a car, Ricky's mind was already made up. Before his Dad could tell him he'd had a change of heart, Ricky went and bought a beat-up `39 Ford coupe from Merle, the somewhat shady town mechanic, with crazy dreams of souping it up to be the best street rod in town.

    He was small for his age and couldn't shoot a rifle. He couldn't even chop down a tree or skin a deer. But none of this seemed to bother Chapman Green, the Long Hunter with whom Flan was to make the dangerous journey over the Wilderness Trail from the Holston River settlement to the French Salt Lick. As the days came and went, Flan came to realize that size wasn't everything. Quick wit and endurance counted for a lot in the wilderness. Slowly his self-reliance grew and, with it, his skill in the woods, and when hostile Indians attacked the group of settlers with whom they were then traveling, Flan was able to give warning and carry out the Long Hunter's instructions. By the time Flan reached a French Salt Lick, he'd learned that it didn't matter so much whether a boy grew up to be a lawyer or a Long Hunter; what did matter was knowing you could make a few mistakes and still win out if you did your best. Like Mr. Steele's earlier book, The Buffalo Knife, this is an authentic, exciting, and well-told story of frontier life in 1782, which will hold young readers' interest to the end.