Westward Go!: Fremont, Randy, and Kit Carson Open Wide the Oregon Trail - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0934812055 ISBN 13: 9780934812054

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

T.L. Loftin during 20 years as researcher-writer in National Geographic's Special Publications (books) Division, Washington, D.C., authored as Tee Loftin Snell AMERICA'S BEGINNINGS: THE WILD SHORES, published in 1974. (Most public libraries will have one of the 350,000 sold.) She also wrote chapters for a number of Geographic books about diverse subjects in various countries. Before joining the Geographic staff, she wrote for radio and TV, was for 10 years the Capitol-accredited Washington reporter for her hometown daily, The Kinston, N.C. Free Press---all while she was caring for a two-children family. In 1980, she edited-wrote, then published trapper Andy Nault's adventure book STAYING ALIVE IN ALASKA'S WILD, Alaska's best seller in 1981. In 1989, after retiring from the National Geographic, she completed the research and writing, then published CONTEST FOR A CAPITAL, true story in novel form of our founding fathers' 8-year fight with each other about where to locate the national capital city. Bookstores in the Smithsonian, U.S. Archives, Library of Congress, D.C. Historical Society, commercial bookstores in D.C., and Disney World in Orlando, FL, sold the book. Her picturemap poster of Civil War Washington sold at Ford's Theater for 25 years, her picturemap poster of Washington 1800 still sells at Octagon House. Ms. Loftin has a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri, an M.A. in Journalism from American University in Washington, D.C. Since 1992, she has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. WESTWARD GO! her fourth book, was published in January 2000.

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"This great story of the opening of the West inspires me to go out there to the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to see this amazing country as it is now, and to reflect upon how it was in the time of Randy, Fremont, and mountainman Kit." (Iona Sebastian, Washington, D.C. Economist, World Bank, retired) "Many a time as I read WESTWARD GO!, I went back for the sheer joy of it to re-read a colorful description, or to relish again a phrase that gave me a tickling surprise." (Willie Pegram Morrison, Wichita, KN, Medical Clinic Manager, retired). "WESTWARD GO! grabbed me with its vivid word pictures, its evocative art. It won me away from my long-time 'hate history' feelings---for here are real people talking, reacting to others, to circumstances, to problems. I love WESTWARD GO's honest account of 'the way it was then' including the way trappers, traders, and Indians got along with each other just before American families began moving west. Seeing the land and the mid-1800 world through the experiences of a 12-year-old adds a lot of feeling to the historical story. I'm sure Middle and High School boys and girls wll love WESTWARD GO!"

(Dr. Mim Chapman, Anchorage, Alaska, Principal, retired, Clark Middle School. Education Consultant, Teacher Training Programs for Disadvantaged Children, Native American Rights Activist) "WESTWARD GO! is amazingly informative as well as entertaining and full of exciting action. In one of my favorite chapters, Fremont shows Randy how to use a sextant to 'shoot the stars.' In another, he shows how he uses the newly invented 'daguerreotype' to make 'sun pictures' called 'photographs.' Fascinating old-timey stuff!"

(E. Barrie Kavasch, Bridgewater, Connecticut. Ethnobotanist, lecturer, author of "American Indian Healing Arts," "Enduring Harvests, American Indian Cookbook") "Here's history leaping from page to life! WESTWARD GO! inspires me to explore the Oregon Trail---and beyond. This enthusiastic reader of WESTWARD GO! now enjoys history more than ever."

(Joyce Blalock, Santa Fe., NM., Attorney, former Inspector General of Washington, D.C.) "I particularly like seeing next to the text the notes in the margin naming sources for every incident, including those that Fremont didn't include in his Report---but which logical deduction from clues embedded in the Report plus good research say more than likely happened. Inspired story telling!"

(Gladys Swindell Lackland, Washington, North Carolina. History and English teacher for 33 years) "Meticulously researched, masterfully presented! Every chapter of WESTWARD GO! is intriguing, insightful in many ways, exciting, and fun." (Dr. and Mrs. Douglas Hill, Kinston, N.C.)

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

(from Chapter 27, pages 297, 298)

The cool morning with a breeze---the thermometer had stood at 70 degrees when Randy checked it at 6 o'clock---had melted away under a heightening sun. The heat, the silence, the tedium of looking and looking at an empty expanse, became stupefying. Randy had a fit of yawning. In the middle of a yawn, his gaze drifted left across the river and beyond. Did he see something on a hill? A dark spot? No! TWO dark spots! THREE!---!

"John! Look left! Across the river!"

John looked. Maxwell looked. The faraway dots were just dots, even seen through the telescope. They moved very slowly, or were they moving at all? "I'm pretty sure that the Indian camp is on this side of the river, not on the left," Maxwell declared. "Those dots across the river look to me like buffalo. They're just some loners grazing."

False alarm. They plodded on.

Randy settled down in his saddle. The men seemed relaxed, talked of the day's mileage---10? 15? 17? They guessed how many more miles it was to St. Vrain's Fort---75? 80? Randy relaxed, too, and had been lightly dreaming of asking Mother if he could go swimming in Rock Creek at Georgetown, when he heard Maxwell yell, "INDIANS! MY GOD!---on the LEFT---across the river!"

Randy jerked to attention. He looked behind him for Basil, saw the three Cheyennes whipping up their ponies furiously, galloping toward the lead group, leaving Basil still walking beside his exhausted mare.

"There's a clump of trees ahead a half-mile! Make for it! Ready your rifles!" Fremont shouted.

But the horses and packmule did not respond to "giddyups" and heel prods or whacks with the reins. They acted almost as tired as Basil's mare. The best they could do was a slow canter.

At first, the distant Indians appeared no more than 15 or 20 in number, but group after group darted into view at the tops of the nearest hills on the left until all those little heights seemed in motion.

In a few minutes, two or three hundred dark-skin men, naked to the breech cloth, were sweeping on galloping horses across the prairie toward Fremont and his men. In only a few minutes more, the lead horseman would reach the river!

Fremont, leading his men toward a grove of trees that looked to be just ahead at the river's bend, discovered the trees were actually on the opposite bank! On the prairie, two or three hundred yelling Indian horsemen were rapidly covering the distance to the river. A race! Which group of horsemen would reach and cross the river first---the Indian army with bows and arrows in hand, or the three white men and a boy with guns?

Fremont's horse splashed into the water, heading for the grove of trees for whatever protection a few tree trunks might provide. Beside him rode Maxwell. Randy and Yo followed closely, with the three Cheyennes some hundred yards behind them. Basil and mare waited and watched in the river bottom a half-mile away.

Just before Fremont reached the grove at the edge of the river, the lead Indian horse and rider splashed into the water at high speed. Swift as an arrow, the horse flashed past Fremont. "Guns ready!" Fremont shouted. At the same moment, Maxwell's voice yelling strange words cut through the air---and Maxwell's horse sprang suddenly into the path of the insurgent rider who was wheeling his horse around to face Fremont.

Maxwell was yelling more strange words and the Indian was pulling his horse to a halt, leaning toward Maxwell, then yelling and stretching out his arm and hand to grasp Maxwell's.

"They know each other!" Fremont shouted, and rode up to them, right hand extended. The Indian extended his. As their fingers touched, Fremont said, "Lieutenant John Fremont, United States Army!" The Indian, striking his breast with a fist, shouted, "ArapaHO!"

Details zur Ausgabe

• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0934812055
• ISBN 13: 9780934812054
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar