The Free Rangers

The Free Rangers is the third book in Joseph Alexander Altsheler’s Young Trailers series, published in 1909. It continues the adventures of Henry Ware, Paul Cotter, and the small band of Kentucky scouts who have become the main figures of the series. By this volume the cast has settled into the group of five who appear throughout the rest of the series, with Shif’less Sol Hyde, Long Jim Hart, and the silent Tom Ross joining the two original boys.

In this book the five scouts travel south down the Mississippi to New Orleans, then under Spanish control, on a mission relating to a planned attack on the Kentucky settlements. Most of the action is on the river. There are flatboat journeys, ambushes by river pirates working below the Ohio confluence, an extended sequence in Spanish New Orleans where the scouts have to behave like ordinary travelers while they investigate a conspiracy, and a long return journey upstream by canoe and on foot. The historical period is the late 1780s and the conspiracy involves real tensions between the American settlements and Spanish Louisiana.

Altsheler writes physical action well and is comfortable with the frontier landscape. His New Orleans sections are less convincing than his woodland scenes, because he is working from reading rather than from firsthand familiarity, but the Mississippi sequences are vivid. The friendship among the five scouts is the most enjoyable thing in the series. Sol Hyde’s deadpan complaints and Long Jim’s cooking become running jokes, and the small group has the easy feeling of a real long term friendship rather than a stock adventure team.

For readers new to Altsheler, this is not the best place to start. Begin with The Young Trailers or The Forest Runners, where the characters are introduced and the frontier setting is established. For readers already following the series, The Free Rangers extends the range of the books geographically and historically, and is one of the more varied entries. It pairs naturally with The Riflemen of the Ohio, which follows immediately and brings the action back to the northwest forests.