Books in Adventures in Frontier America Series series

East of the high Sierras of California lies an arid land of hardy but remarkable flora and fauna—and equally remarkable people. Mary Austin has captured and wonderfully described this place and its living things in this classic volume. A prolific writer, friend of H.G. Wells, Jack London, and other notables, Mary Austin was well acquainted with the flowers, the valleys and hills, the still-hopeful prospectors, the indigenous peoples keeping touch as best they could with an ancient way of life. This is her tribute to that special land and its inhabitants in the waning years of the nineteenth century. EXCERPTS (G)reat flocks pour down the trails with that peculiar melting motion of moving quail, twittering, shoving, and shouldering. They splatter into the shallows, drink daintily, shake out small showers over their perfect coats, and melt away again into the scrub, preening and pranking, with soft contented noises. —WATER TRAILS OF THE CERISO He was a perfect gossip of the woods, this Pocket Hunter, and when I could get him away from "leads" and "strikes" and "contacts," full of fascinating small talk about the ebb and flood of creeks, the piñon crop on Black Mountain, and the wolves of Mesquite Valley. I suppose he never knew how much he depended for the necessary sense of home and companionship on the beasts and trees, meeting and finding them in their wonted places,—the bear that used to come down Pine Creek in the spring, pawing out trout from the shelters of sod banks, the juniper at Lone Tree Spring, and the quail at Paddy Jack's. —THE POCKET HUNTER Seyavi made baskets for love and sold them for money, in a generation that preferred iron pots for utility. Every Indian woman is an artist,—sees, feels, creates, but does not philosophize about her processes. —THE BASKET MAKER

Crafted to meet Common Core critical thinking standards, this series focuses on some of the significant events that took place as pioneers blazed a trail to settle America’s western frontier. Readers will explore the causes leading up to these historical events, then examine their immediate and lasting effects on people and places. Lively, descriptive language, primary source accounts, eye-catching illustrations, and detailed infographics, such as maps and charts, bring these stories to life.