Tucket's Home

Zusatztext Join Francis Tucket’s final adventure and homecoming in this rip-roaring series set in the great American West. Informationen zum Autor Gary Paulsen Klappentext Francis Tucket, Lottie and Billy have survived extraordinary, hair-raising adventures in their quest to find Francis's family, lost when he was kidnapped from a wagon train on the Oregon Trail. Now they meet up with a British explorer, bloodthirsty soldiers, and in a tragic, heroic encounter, with Jason Grimes, the mountain man. Their way is made more treacherous still by the secret they carry, the ancient gold they discovered in a Spanish grave. In this final adventure they head home at last, and an epilogue tells what happens to them on the Oregon frontier. Leseprobe Francis Tucket lay quietly, the sun warming his back, and watched a small herd of buffalo below him in a depression on the prairie. There were only fifteen or twenty of them, mostly cows with some yearling calves. Two young bulls were sparring, tearing up the dirt and raising dust in great clouds. He turned to look behind him, where ten-year-old Lottie watched their horses graze. Her little brother, Billy, crouched beside her, making an arrow. Francis looked down at the buffalo. The sun was gentle on his back, the dust from the fight was drifting away on a soft breeze, and as Francis lay watching, he let his mind wander back over the trip since he and Lottie and Billy had left the Pueblo Indian village. They'd stayed there a month so that Francis could recover from a snakebite. With the help of some of the Indians, Lottie had pulled him through, while Billy had learned to hunt and shoot a bow and arrow with amazing skill. The village had been a peaceful place. Now Francis shifted and scanned the horizon. Even in a quiet moment like this one, you had to be alert, ready for anything. They'd all learned that the hard way. Francis Tucket had been separated from his family more than a year before, on his fourteenth birthday, when Pawnees kidnapped him from a wagon train. Jason Grimes, a one-armed mountain man, had helped him escape and taught him to survive. After they parted, Francis had found Lottie and Billy alone on the prairie, their father dead of cholera. They'd been members of a wagon train that abandoned them when their father became sick, for fear that he would infect others in the train. So the three had stuck together and headed west to the Oregon Trail to find Francis's family. Lottie had proved to be the best organizer and camper Francis had ever seen, and Billy, now just shy of eight, had become a hunting and scouting machine of the first order. They'd been through some hair-raising adventures: Kidnapped by the Comanchero outlaw band. Storms. Snakebite. Ambushed by the murderous thieves Courtweiler and Dubs. The three had shared plenty, good and bad, and now they shared a secret--the ancient Spanish silver and gold they carried on the packhorse. When they were being chased by the Comancheros Billy had stumbled upon the grave of a Spanish conquistador, buried with his armor, sword and plunder of centuries ago. Of course, gold and silver meant nothing out here in the wilderness. But someday, someday they'd find Francis's family and civilization, though they still had five hundred miles of rough country to cover alone. Francis had feared there would be problems on this part of their journey, but it had turned out to be nothing more than a camping trip in a country so beautiful that Francis often had trouble believing it was real. They had started in partial desert, country covered in mesquite and pinons, but it quickly gave way to mountains. Spring had come early and had stayed. Thick, green grass kept the horses well fed and happy; streams ran full of cold water and trout. Billy caught the fish easily, using a skill he'd learned from the Pueblos that required...

Product details

• Authors: Gary Paulsen
• Publisher: Yearling Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 12.02.2002
• EAN: 9780440415589
• ISBN: 978-0-440-41558-9
• No. of pages: 112
• Dimensions: 133 mm x 194 mm x 8 mm
• Series: The Francis Tucket Books; Tucket Adventures (Paperback); Francis Tucket Books
• Subject: Children's and young people's books