HALF-BREED

When he leaves the Crow village to find his white father, twelve-year-old Hardy Hollingshead wears a medicine bag around his neck and marvels at the white man's lumber, his glass, and his rugs like blankets; before his Dad turns up in Portland (Ore.), Hardy has some doubts about the medicine bag and more about the white man--there's Aunt Rhody making him work like a squaw and the settlers who look down on him as a half-breed. But Dad is glad to see him and their camaraderie is comforting until Dad's feet begin to itch again and off he goes without a word. Hardy's had enough, he'd just as soon high-tail it back to the Crows, but there's always something else to do for Aunt Rhody like laying in a garden; after all, she is a woman and alone. When they're about to be evicted, Dad is returned by a friendly marshal--just in time to put in the claim that will make homesteaders of Hardy and Aunt Rhody and give Hardy something for the future. The story is not as credible as its credentials would suggest (all but the Hollingsheads lived in the Oregon Territory at the time) but the situation of an Indian boy perplexed by the white man's peculiar ways comes across and a smooth style keeps it moving.