Book excerpt: There have been many stories written about the mountain men of the fur trade era in the western mountains. It was an exciting time in our history. As the fur trade died out and hundreds and thousands of pilgrims headed west in wagon trains to their new lives, many passed through the area south of the Michigan Territory. In the 1830's and 1840's northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were wild places sparsely inhabited. The people who decided to explore and settle there had to be just as hearty and adventurous as those who chose to go further west. While the places in this story are all real, the characters are fiction. I hope the reader finds this story, which takes place in a different part of our country during those exciting times, to be enjoyable.