Rating: 
Summary: Before there was a country, there were Sacketts here....
Review: While I believe that I have read most of the Sackett novels, this first one was always my favorite. It is definately the most unusual of the series, indeed, of anything that I've read by Louis L'Amour. Set in 1599, it is the story of Barnabas Sackett, founder of the Sackett clan in the New World. The Sacketts were fenmen (swamp men) eeking out an existance farming the little good land available to them, fishing for eels, smuggling, or going off to fight in the wars. It was the combination of the chance finding of a cache of Roman gold, along with a fight with an arrogant aristocrat, that put young Barnabas on the road to "adventure." Fleeing to London, he meets the contacts that he will need to set sail for a new world and a new life. The sword fights, pirates, and sea battles that follow are not what you expect in a "western", but they are quite good never-the-less. Upon surviving to reach America (after Roanoke, but before Jamestown) Barnabas rapidly sizes up the territory and the inhabitants and resolves to start his family there- far from kings and aristocrats. When he hears of the "far blue mountains" from the Indians that he is trading with, he makes up his mind to one day travel to them- and beyond. This entry refers to the deluxe, leatherette, hard cover for the Louis Lamour Collection Library.
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