DICK WOOTTON:- Trail Blazer of Raton Pass

Another of Shannon Garst's fictionalizations of the lives of well known mountain men and scouts of the early West takes up the biography of Richens Wootton when he is nineteen in 1836. In Independence Dick joins the Bent-St. Vrain wagon train to Taos, overcomes some youthful blunders and is finally made a ""cavy driver"" and placed in charge of a small train north to trade with the Sioux. During the next decade the narrative faithfully follows Wootton's comings and goings -- as he marries Dolores, a Spanish girl, and has two sons, as he meets his peers- Bridger, Meek- and Carson- and becomes a factor in the making of western history. An easy going appreciation of our rugged tradition.