Early American

LONG HUNT--James Boyd--Scribner ($2.50).

This is the third novel of an author whose first book was a bestseller, who has written each book better than the last. All of them U. S. historical novels, each succeeding one smells less of the lamp, more of the country. Long Hunt is redolent of the West of 1800.

Murfree Rinnard was a trapper who hated houses, loved the woods; he knew the forests of Tennessee, "Kaintuck," North Carolina like the back of his hand. When he had a load of furs he came to town to get drunk, get a woman, then get away. In Hill Town, N. C. he saw a girl he wanted. She fell in love with him, he slipped off before it was too late. But he was never able to forget her. Years later he saw her in the West: when the Chickasaws rose against the white settlers, Murfree got through to the besieged blockhouse where she was. They had had no water for two days, the Indians knew it. Murfree got it for them, but never knew whether she was grateful.

Author James Boyd, 37, married, is a native of Harrisburg, Pa., moved to North Carolina when he was 13, lives at Southern Pines. He graduated from Princeton (1910), spent two years at Trinity College, Cambridge. Before the War he worked with Publisher Doubleday Page because he liked books, thought he had not enough ability to write one himself. After the War doctors ordered him South. Says he: "I had to do something . . . so I decided to try writing short stories. . . ." Lean, tanned, Author Boyd is Master of Hounds at Southern Pines, hunts three days a week during the season. Other books: Drums, Marching On.

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