by Jim Kjelgaard

    Some day, John Belden told himself, he would be a forest ranger. His chance came unexpectedly as a one-year substitute in the Rasca district of the Alleghany back country.

This is the story of that year - plowing roads, fighting fires, hunting killer bears and wolves, planting trees, attending to all the duties that make up a ranger's life.

But more than anything else it is the story of a nineteen-year-old boy's finding himself and learning that success is not just heroics, but constantly doing your best.

-AB Publishing, Inc.