While portraying life in a new settlement on New York's Lake Otsego in the final years of the 18th century, Cooper deftly explores the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of the American experience. He contrasts the natural codes of the hunter and woodsman, Natty Bumpo, and his Indian friend, John Mokegan, with the more rigid structure of law required by a more complex society.
This is the fourth in Cooper's series of five books known as the Leatherstocking Tales, which were arranged according to the chronology of their hero, Natty Bumpo.