In California's rugged northeast, where the Sierra Nevada range meets and mingles with the Cascades, stands the last active volcano in the United States. A century ago and more, the Astugewi Indians and neighboring tribes who spent their summers there knew it as simply "The Mountain." Although they lived peacefully upon its slops, and it remained quiet, they felt is smouldering power.

In this period and this setting, Jack Steffan's exciting and authentic novel tells of the violence that invaded the lives of young Paka and the rest of the tribe of which his father was chief when the first white men came. Some were friendly but most were not; and as trouble increased between the red men and the white, Paka used to cry, "Some day The Mountain will speak," feeling instinctively that the volcano would protect the Indians.

And Lassen's subsequent history has borne out Paka's fictional prophecy. Some sixty-five years later, the area was made a national park and today the Atsugewi and their neighbors are free to come again to their traditional summering ground on "The Mountain."

From the dust jacket