ACONS WEST

From Boston to San Bernardino by Conestoga wagon is a long trip but somehow--though there's not an original phrase, character or situation in this book--the story manages to stay interesting. Dr. John Bedell Jackson, 28, a Bostonian, gets involved in a scandal after he saves the life of a tavern slut. When irate citizens set out to lynch him, Dr. John decides to join Blacky Dupre and his family on their Conestoga trek West. Because of the season, the emigrants stop by at a little river town on the Mississippi for several months, where John saves a great many people during a cholera epidemic. As the town hero, he settles into temporary professional activity and makes love to a French widow. However his heart, though he doesn't know it, is really set on Blacky Dupre's pretty daughter Merry. Having been to Paris and being something of an artist (he draws glands and organs), John teaches Merry art and when the call ""Wagons West!"" is heard again, Merry is up at daybreak and drawing all the homely details. They join with some Mormons, fight Comanches, the desert and thirst, and are last seen descending into the lush greenery of San Berdoo, with John and Merry engaged. Nothing new but all readable.