Five-year-old George wasn't afraid of Indians, but his father said that there was danger of an Indian attack in Albemarle County. That was why the Clark family was moving to Caroline County in Tidewater Virginia in 1757.

George hated to leave the mountains, and he knew he would miss his good friend, Tom Jefferson. Nevertheless, when moving day came, he was happy and proud to lead the procession. His pony, Soldier, pranced and danced. George sat up straight in his saddle. The wagons began to roll.

"Good-by, Mountains," Mr. Clark sang out. "We're on our way."

Soldier jogged easily. The wagons bumped along behind. Sometimes George rode ahead like an advance scout. Then he would come back and tell the family that it was all clear. He felt important. He was leading his family through the woods to its new home.

Redheaded George Rogers loved the great outdoors. He trained a pup to be his hunting dog, and together they spent hours tramping through the woods. That was where George felt happiest; that was where he dreamed of the wild frontier far beyond the rugged country he had known in Albemarle County.

Young George was quick-thinking, daring when danger threatened, courageous, and kind. When a "guest" in his uncle's plantation home turned out to be a thief, it was George who rescued the money bag and dashed through a secret passage to save it.

When his two younger brothers were marooned on a tiny island during a flash flood, it was George who, without a thought for his own safety, plunged into the raging stream and took them to safety.

Good-humored, likable, resourceful, filled with a zest for wilderness life, George became the kind of leader that men followed trustingly and without question.

George Rogers Clark's daring exploits and his conquest of the Old Northwest—Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin—won by the bold and decisive capture of Vincennes, made it possible for the newborn nation to claim this great rich heart of America after the Revolutionary War.

Katharine E. Wilkie, a knowledgeable and experienced writer, has here given boys and girls a vigorous story of adventure. By making one of the most inspired and inspiring heroes of the winning of the Old Northwest very real, she has also drawn an accurate picture of life in a time long vanished.

From the dust jacket of the 1960 reprint