"We still read Cooper today because he was the first of our authors to seize upon the dramatic possibilities of that unfallen western world that stands at the beginning of our national life."--J. W. Ward

The Prairie marks the final chapter in James Fenimore Cooper's great saga of American frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Though nearly ninety in 1804, Bumppo is still competent as a frontiersman and trapper, now on the Great Plains. Once more he is drawn into conflict with society in the form of an emigrant party led by the surly Ishmael Bush and his miscreant brother-in-law Abiram White. And once again this great man of nature is called upon to exhibit his courage and resourcefulness to rescue the innocent.