Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew

Snow around an assayer's furnace gives three Colorado prospectors reason to doubt their hopes of wealth. In Robert McReynolds's adventure novel, the narrator, John Buchan and Will Carson have spent months digging into a mountainside above the San Luis Valley. Reports from Saguache promise steadily improving ore, until Buchan discovers that the supposed tests have been guessed. A suspected arrangement between the assayer and a buyer of mining claims adds another threat to their dwindling resources.

Elsewhere in the story, the narrator faces Don Rodrigo and armed soldiers aboard a speeding train. Manuel helps him during a struggle that makes control of the locomotive as urgent as escape from his opponents. The first-person telling gives close attention to tools, supplies, terrain and machinery. Readers who enjoy adventure built around practical difficulties will find both the slow strain of a doubtful mining venture and the immediate danger of a railway pursuit.