
Beatrice Deems arrives in the quiet Montana hamlet of Ely, carrying the expectations of a city girl and the lingering grief of a recent family move. When Dan O’Leary presents her with a buckskin pony named Buck, her uncertainty about riding a true Western horse clashes with a fierce curiosity. The town’s weather‑worn stable and the horse’s unpredictable antics force her to confront the gap between textbook lessons and the raw, untamed reality of frontier life.
Climbing into the saddle, Beatrice is thrown into a swift, breezy ride across the open‑air trail that skirts Broken Bow Creek and the looming Rockies. The wind whistles through the peaks as the pony’s effortless gallop awakens a newfound sense of freedom, while the surrounding dusty streets and modest storefronts remind her of the challenges that lie ahead. As the landscape rolls past, she begins to discover that mastering the horse may be the first step toward mastering her own place in this rugged world.
Language
en
Duration
~4 hours (242K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Release date
2018-09-02
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects

1884–1973
An award-winning writer for young readers, she brought history, adventure, and everyday courage to life in books that stayed popular for decades. Her work as a novelist, biographer, teacher, and critic helped shape modern children's literature.
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