With Axe and Rifle; or The Western Pioneers, by W.H.G. Kingston.
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With great skill and sincerity Kingston depicts many of the struggles
and efforts that the would-be settlers in the West had to make.
Constant harrying by Red Indians, the weather, nasty neighbours,
illness, all made life difficult, indeed almost impossible.
The book is told through the eyes of a boy, as he grows to adulthood.
His family, also Mr Tidey, who acted as family tutor, or Dominie, and
Dio, a runaway slave to whom they give a home, form the principal actors
in this tale, but there are many others, such as the wicked Bracher, and
a mysterious hunter who appears several times in the book in the guise
of a rescuer.
Well into the last chapter we are presented with all sorts of dreadful
happenings, which the hero feels to be like the imagined happenings of a
bad dream. But suddenly it all sorts out and we have an unexpectedly
happy conclusion to the tale.
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