Zane Grey wrote the historical novel The Spirit of the Border, which was
first released in 1906. The events depicted in the book are those that
took place in the Ohio River Valley in the late eighteenth century. It
tells the story of Lewis Wetzel, a historical figure who devoted his
life to eliminating Native Americans and defending emerging European
settlements in that area. The plot centers on the attempt by Moravian
Church missionaries to convert Indians to Christianity and the divergent
routes that the lives of the two brothers take when they cross the
border.However, when the Village of Peace, a Christian utopian
settlement, is destroyed, the settlers know they will have to hunt him
down. The evil Girty brothers urge Indians to commit a succession of
killings.The author doesn't mean to defend the story's "brutality," as
some readers may see it, but rather to emphasize that the story's wild
spirit is genuine to the life of the Western frontier as it was known
just a little more than a century ago.