Heritage of the Desert: Classic American Western Novel

From Customer Review; Perhaps, with the exception of Riders of the Purple Sage, Heritage of the Desert is the best western Zane Grey ever wrote. It combines every thing one expects to find in the genre, and then adds a little bit more you don't expect to find. It is the basic story of a young man, John Hare, who has come west to regain his health and to find his place in life only to be branded "Dene's spy" and becomes a hunted man. There is the Mormon element, only in this book they receive favorable treatment by Zane Grey; there are animal heros; a faithful Indian companion to the heroine, a half-Indian girl, Mescal; rustlers and land thieves; a favored son gone bad; and the canyon country of Utah described as only the master detailer can depict it in all of its glory and spendor. With this book Zane Grey set the standard by which he himself had to live up to with each succeeding novel, and HE DID.