COLT OF DESTINY

Plenty of horse interest sparks this latest in the Land of the Free Series- it should sell first as horse-adventure. Jaime Otero, fifteen-year-old orphan living with kind Father Serra and the Brothers of the Franciscan mission in California in the year 1787, Is Father Berra's emissary to the cruel Spanish aristocrat, Don Soberbio, in the constant clashes of the missions and Military, interested in property and wealth -- often inhumanly exploiting the Indians on their lands. But Jaime is really interested in catching a beautiful wild horse-one of the descendents of the early Arabian horses brought with Coronado's expeditions. Finally in a dangerous, thrilling adventure he captures and gentles a lovely pale-gold filly, Starlight. His success in taming and training her prove to save his life later when he is captured by the Yuma Indians in their anger against his work for the Spanish. The hatred of the Indians against Don Soberbio comes to a dramatic climax in which Jaime, with an Indian friend, takes an important part. A scholarly contribution to the series, amply informed on region and period and the relations between Spaniards and Indians, and there is a delightful prologue in which the author reconstructs the probable events which accounted for the wild feral bands. Occasionally there is a somewhat pompous tone, but this will be forgotten in the main emphasis on horses.