Good book about Colorado. First half was hard to read but then became faster.

This was an interesting and educational read, but not my favorite Henty. I did like the setting in Colorado a couple hundred years ago; Tom joins an uncle and together they strike a rich mine, outwit and escape hostile indians, navigate the Colorado river, make it back alive, and eventually live happily ever after on the proceeds of their mine. Not too much nobility of purpose although the characters were morally upright, as always in Henty's books.

For learning about the discovery and exploration of Colorado, the book is great. But don't expect the drama of "The Lion of St. Mark" or "In Freedom's Cause".

I enjoyed this book, though Henty is more than a little inconsistent on the issue of race. I was taken aback by the fact that he could create a narrative in which there was such a close bond between Straight Harry (a white) and Chief Leaping Horse (a "good" Indian), and simultaneously make offensively racist remarks about Indians who were considered "bad." The latter category consisted of individuals and tribes who chose not to cater to white interests.

Oh well, Henty died in 1902, and was very much a product of 19th century thinking

If I could give this book more than five stars I would. What a wonderful tale! Full of adventure and very well written. Loved every page!

This is certainly one of GA Henty’s most exciting and action packed books that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. While many of Henty’s books delve too far into descriptions of war events and other happenings that can tend to make his books a drag at times, this book does no such thing.

This book offers action-packed chapters and much more dialogue than your average Henty, which adds to the readability in my opinion. It’s 19 chapters of enjoyable stories of Indian attacks, wilderness wanderings, and mining for gold.

The only complaint I can muster is that there’s not a ton of diversity to the story once you get 50% through the book. Multiple Indian attacks and trekking through the Rocky Mountains pretty much sums up the last half of the book. Again, however, the constant action and enjoyable dialogue more than make up for this one flaw and warrants a 4 star rating for this excellent read.

Ehhhh... Henty's a bit off-brand in this one, and it shows. As much as I can grin over and mentally catalog all the usual Henty tropes, I really felt the lack of them here. To start with, the story only nominally belongs to Tom, as very few of the actions, decisions, or even ideas are in any way attributable to him, and he's very much an onlooker for most of the story. Which makes complete sense with as little experience as he has in the West by the time anything actually starts to happen, but--it doesn't make for much of a connection with him. Also, until near the end of the book, it felt like the most exciting incidents were things that happened in the stories of one of the various mountain men, which is fine but doesn't contain the same sense of danger or excitement when you know they got out of it somehow since they're sitting here telling the story. The action did definitely pick up in the last part of the book, but by the halfway point, I was honestly pretty bored, which is unusual for me with Henty. Also, aside from a few western cliches and a smattering of dialect, most of the dialogue came out sounding indistinguishable from a stock British character in any of his other books and time periods--to the point where I couldn't even follow the thread of who was speaking in some of the conversations. And the friendships that are usually one of my favorite aspects were almost entirely absent--for the amount of time that this party spent together, we barely got any kind of personal feeling at all. (Except some of the bits between Harry and the chief--really liked those.) Anyway--yeah. Just not on brand and therefore not my favorite. :)

Content--some derogatory names for Indians ("redskins" used in general conversation, "varmints" in anger or disgust, "dogs" for some particularly troublesome bands); some derogatory comments about Indian habits, etc., although also shown in a respectful light at times, and some Indians share in the adventure and are treated with full friendship; violence, including Indian attacks, and deaths; saddle horses slaughtered for other use in a desperate situation

This is a very good Henty, that I enjoyed more than usual. It's more realistic than your average henty, with a very good story.

There are so many things to know afresh from this book. A great read for me this year. Highly recommend it to mountain man book fans and frontier life book readers.

Great book!