The Wild Huntress: Love in the Wilderness — Key Ideas to Explore

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In Category - Young Readers Enchanted Adventures

Authors: Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2009 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Ute Indians -- Fiction; Latter Day Saint pioneers -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 157,792

Reading time 687 min

Text sections 17

This digital edition of The Wild Huntress: Love in the Wilderness — Key Ideas to Explore is described by source-level measurements including 157,792 words, 11 hr 27 min estimated reading time, and 17 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 17.2 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Ute Indians -- Fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #28033

Mayne Reid's 1860 novel follows a squatter's family in the Tennessee wilderness, blending detailed descriptions of frontier life with a tense encounter against a Ute war party. The catalog subjects of Ute Indians and Latter Day Saint pioneers appear only marginally in the excerpts, which focus on hunting, clearing, and survival.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

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Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg28033

Read the Text

There was silence while both drank; and Holt was again under the necessity of beginning the conversation. As already observed, he had noticed the altered style of the schoolmaster's costume; and it was to this transformation that his next speech alluded. "Why, Josh," said he, attempting an easy off-hand style of talk, "ye're bran new, spick span, from head to foot; ye look for all the world jest like one o' them ere cantin' critters o' preechers I often see prowlin' about Swampville. Durn it, man! what dodge air you up to now. _You_ hain't got rileegun, I reck'n?"

"I have," gravely responded Stebbins.

"Hooraw! ha, ha, ha! Wal--what sort o' thing is't anyhow?"

"My religion is of the right sort, Brother Holt."

"Nothing of the kind."

"What then? I thort they wur all Methodies in Swampville?"

"They're all _Gentiles_ in Swampville--worse than infidels themselves."

"Wal--I know they brag mightily on thur genteelity. I reckon you're about right thur--them, storekeepers air stuck-up enough for anythin'."

"No, no; it's not that I mean. My religion has nothing to do with Swampville. Thank the Lord for his mercy, I've been led into a surer way of salvation. I suppose, Brother Holt, you've heard of the new Revelation?"

"Heern o' the new rev'lation. Wal, I don't know as I hev. What's the name o't?"

"The book of _Mormon_?"

"Oh! Mormons! I've hearn o' them. Hain't they been a fightin' a spell up thur in Massouray or Illinoy, whar they built 'em a grandiferous temple? I've hearn some talk o't."

"At Nauvoo. It is even so, Brother Holt the wicked Gentiles have been persecuting the Saints: just as their fathers were persecuted by the Egyptian Pharaohs."

"An' hain't they killed their head man--Smith he wur called, if I recollex right."

"Alas, true! Joseph Smith has been made a martyr, and is by this time an angel in heaven. No doubt he is now in glory, at the head of the angelic host."

"Wal--if the angels are weemen, he'll hev a good wheen o' 'em about him, I reck'n. I've hearn he wur at the head of a putty consid'able host o' 'em up thur in Massoury--fifty wives they said he hed! Wur that ere true, Josh?"

"Scandal, Brother Holt--all scandal of the wicked enemies of our faith. They were but wives _in the spirit_. That the Gentiles can't comprehend; since their eyes have not been opened by the Revelation."

"Wal, it 'pears to be a tol'able free sort o' rileegun anyhow. Kind o' Turk, aint it?"

"Nothing of the kind. It has nothing in common with the doctrines of Mohammedanism."

"But whar did _you_ get it, Josh Stebbins? Who gin it to you?"

"You remember the man I brought over here last fall?"

"Sartint I do. Young he wur--Brig Young, I think, you called him."

"In coorse, I remember him well enough; but I reckon our Marian do a leetle better. He tried to spark the gurl, an' made fine speeches to her; but she couldn't bar the sight o' him for all that. Ha! ha! ha. Don't ye recollex the trick that ar minx played on him? She unbuckled the girt o' his saddle, jest as he wur a-goin' to mount, and down he kim--saddle, bags, and all--cawollup to the airth! ha! ha! Arter he wur gone, I larfed till I wur like to bust."

"You did wrong, Hickman Holt, to encourage your daughter in her sauciness. Had you known the man--_that man, sir, was a prophet_!"

"Yes--the greatest perhaps the world ever saw--a man in direct communication with the Almighty himself."

"Lord! 'Twan't Joe Smith, wur it?"

"No; but one as great as he--one who has inherited his spirit; and who is now the head of all the Saints."

"That feller at thur head? You 'stonish me, Josh Stebbins."

"Ah! well you may be astonished. That man has astonished me, Hickman Holt. He has turned me from evil ways, and led me to fear the Lord." The squatter looked incredulous, but remained silent. "Yes--that same man who was here with me in your humble cabin, is now Chief Priest of the Mormon Church! He has laid his hands on this poor head, and constituted me one of his humble Apostles. Yes, one of the _Twelve_, intrusted with spreading the true faith of the Saints over all the world."

"Hooraw for you, Josh Stebbins! You'll be jest the man for that sort o' thing; ye've got the larnin' for it, hain't you?"

Continue Reading →

The opening chapter of The Wild Huntress devotes several paragraphs to a single image: a squatter's clearing seen from above by a white-headed eagle. The description is painstakingly specific—the girdled trees stripped of bark by log-cocks, the cane-brake fired, the brush burned in heaps. The narrator insists this scene is not commonplace, claiming it imparts 'an air of vague and mystic grandeur.' This tension between the mundane labor of clearing land and a romanticized view of the pioneer's life sets the tone for the excerpts, which dwell more on landscape and threat than on the catalog subjects of Ute Indians or Latter Day Saint pioneers.

The Squatter's Clearing as a Character

The novel's first chapter is almost entirely descriptive, with no named characters introduced. The clearing is described as 'a mere patch—scarcely two acres in extent,' surrounded by a zig-zag rail-fence. The narrator notes that the squatter 'hates the sight of an extensive clearing' and prefers the virgin forest. This preference is presented as a character trait: the squatter is 'essentially a hunter' who hears the lumberer's axe as 'a knell of dread import.' The prose is dense with natural detail—the 'tangle of parasitical plants,' the 'blanched skeletons' of dead trees—but it remains static. No action occurs; the chapter functions as a set-piece establishing the setting as a character in its own right.

Threat and Standoff on the Butte

Later excerpts shift to a tense confrontation between a small group of armed men and a large war party. The narrator describes the enemy's approach with precise sensory detail: 'uttering their wild “Howgh-owgh-aloo!”' and making their shields rattle. The standoff is narrated in real time, with the defenders holding their fire until the last moment. The narrator identifies the attackers as not Comanches, Jicarilla-Apache, or Caygüas, but possibly Cheyennes or Arapahoes. One shield bears a 'red-hand' painted on a black disc, a detail used as a totem. The scene ends with the war party halted, but the threat unresolved. The excerpts give no indication of how the standoff concludes or whether the Latter Day Saint pioneers mentioned in the catalog subjects appear.

Catalog Subjects vs. Excerpt Evidence

The Project Gutenberg catalog lists 'Ute Indians -- Fiction' and 'Latter Day Saint pioneers -- Fiction' as subjects. However, the excerpts contain no mention of Utes or Latter Day Saints. The war party is explicitly compared to several Plains tribes but never identified as Ute. The setting is Tennessee, far from the Great Basin or Utah. The term 'Mormon' does not appear. It is possible these subjects emerge later in the novel, but the available text sections—covering the opening and a later standoff—do not support them. Readers should be aware that the catalog subjects may reflect the novel's full scope, but the excerpts alone offer no evidence of either group.

The excerpts from The Wild Huntress reveal a novel more concerned with landscape and immediate danger than with the ethnic or religious groups listed in its catalog subjects. The prose is dense with natural observation, and the standoff scene is handled with a journalist's eye for detail. Readers interested in frontier adventure and descriptive writing will find much to engage with, while those seeking a story centered on Ute or Mormon characters should approach with caution, as the excerpts do not confirm those elements.

I remember shelving The Wild Huntress one quiet afternoon, its rough frontier days lingering like woodsmoke. It is a book of stubborn survival, not romance, despite its title. That same stubbornness, the weight of a world that asks too much, lives in The Tale of Lal A Fantasy — Background and Themes, though its landscape is far stranger. Both know what it costs to keep going when the clearing feels endless.