Adventurers — Ernest Haycox

To Mark Sheridan, as he sailed north out of Frisco, the Oregon of 1865 meant wide-open opportunity for a determined man. He didn't give much thought to other people--like his shipboard acquaintances George Revelwood, who was a little too charming to be honest, and lovely Clara Dale. But that was before the storm-wracked Pacific tore these three from the foundering wreck of the "Jennie North" and threw them together onto the wild shore of the new land.

In Oregon, Mark, who took the savage fighting of frontier life for granted, found trouble of a sort he hadn't expected. The stage line he set up along the valley was a good chance for big profits--until he had it working, and then the big-money men came in and neatly took it over and left him nothing. He put an unused sawmill back into operation--and saw fire flare down out of the forest and obliterate it.

Around him Mark saw others who had fought and dreamed and been beaten. George Revelwood, who had always taken life on his own terms, who handled women as easily as he handled everything, was driven at last to murder for Clara--who didn't care. And Clara, who took and kept taking and was never satisfied, one day looked into her mirror and saw the real self there which she could not face. And there were so many more--the impulsive, eager girl who threw herself at Mark, and was afraid that life was passing her by: the old people who asked themselves, "What have we missed?"

Mark came to see that courage and ability were not always enough to win; he learned, too, that life has meanings beyond power and money. By then it was almost too late, for the woman he loved and needed was claimed already by another. He had yet to face his deadliest battle for her sake.

To the exciting and violent story of a primitive land in evolution, Ernest Haycox has added his deep understanding of its people.