Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Lost River Trail is the tenth and last volume of the Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders series, which is the last of the four Grace Harlowe series. (The others are about Grace in high school, Grace in college, and her overseas series, which appears to be about her adventures as an ambulance driver during World War I.)

Grace is still referred to as 'Grace Harlowe' by the author, although characters address her as 'Mrs. Gray'. Her husband's name is Tom. He's been around since the first series. He's a forestry engineer and off making a timber survey for the government. According to https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Grace_Harlowe, which cites Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers for this information, our heroine is actually Grace Harlowe II. The original Grace Harlowe was her grandmother, who led a group of riders in what was then the Western Frontier during the 19th century.

The Overland Riders are being guided through Washington state's forest by Hamilton 'Ham' White, who gets the book going by telling Hippy Wingate, husband of Grace's friend Nora, to rouse the others. There's some trouble, but he doesn't want to spell it out, even though Hippy tells him he has the wrong idea about the riders. Ham does explain, after everyone is ready to go. Yes, a wildfire is sufficient reason to get moving. A wildfire in the character's path is not a bad way to start off an adventure. Adding a village that needs to be warned makes it better. Keep those ponies moving!

It's a good thing for Ham White that he has the Overland Riders to help him in felling trees and creating burned areas around Silver Creek Village, because none of the villagers will help until they realize there IS a fire, and it's less than a quarter mile (0.4 km) away! The village is surrounded on three sides early into chapter three.

NOTES:

Chapter I (1):

a. Emma Dean's offer to 'demonstrate' over the problem, and the others' remarks about her offer is explained by the writer of the notes on the various series a thttps://c.web.umkc.edu/crossonm/graceharlowe.htm . Emma is described as having 'inexplicably ... become a mystic cult-of-the-month devotee'.

b. Because someone named Arline Thayer is said to have put something over on Emma last year, that was probably one of the earlier books in the Overland Riders series.

Chapter II (2):

a. Because I have not read any of at least three books involving Grace Harlowe's war work in France, or the books between that one and this one, I can't say how many crushes Emma has had before her current one on Ham White.

b. Silver Creek, stream and village, are reached.

c. Washington Territory became a state in 1889, so Stacy is really insulting the crackers in the barrel.

Chapter III (3): Elfreda is towed down Silver Creek to Roaring River.

Chapter IV (4):

a. Emma has known Ham White less than a week. The Overland Riders hired him on the recommendation of a banker in Cresco. They're heading for the Cascade Range.

b. Stacy rode a log, which he called a 'Roaring River Liner'.

c. To be 'f*gged out' is slang for being exhausted. It has nothing to do with slurs.

d. Elfreda meets a man who says he was shot.

Chapter V (5):

a. Elfreda wears a jeweled watch presented to her by the French Government.

b. Ham White warns about the Murrays, notorious bandits.

Chapter VI (6):

a. Sam Peterson was shot by the Hawk Murray gang. Elfreda worked with the wounded in WWI, so she tends him.

b. Sam Peterson tells Elfreda about the Lost Mine.

Chapter VII (7): Elfreda meets the six men of the Hawk Murray Gang.

Chapter VIII (8): Elfreda and Stacy are found.

Chapter IX (9):

a. Elfreda asks Ham about Lost River and if there's a legend about 'Grandma and the Children'.

b. Elfreda calls Grace's flashlight her 'pocket lamp'.

c. There are two mysterious thefts and Elfreda has a suspect.

d. The Pony Rider Boys was another Henry Altemus Company series. The author was Frank Gee Patchin.

Chapter X (10):

a. The Overland Riders meet Jim Haley, who tells them he's the International Peanut Company's sole representative in Washington state. He calls himself the 'Man From Seattle' and dresses like a Mexican rancher.

b. To 'foozle' is to bungle something or be awkward about it. Apparently it's a golf term.

Chapter XI (11): Stacy staying in his tent with his blanket over his heat when he hears gunfire is described as 'practicing safety first'.

Chapter XII (12):

a. I do not know why Elfreda feels she has an obligation to Stacy that she can never repay.

b. Stacy plays a prank.

Chapter XIII (13):

a. Ham White says it's illegal to shoot black bears [out of season].

b. Stacy uses 'cart wheels' as a term for dollars.

Chapter XIV (14): This is not a chapter for animal lovers.

Chapter XV (15):

a. The author is using 'queer' in its old meaning of being odd or strange.

b. Granted, the words are of a man who was already old in 1924, but I'm afraid the 'N-word' is used here.

Chapter XVII (17): Grace is out of practice reading wigwag signal flag signals.

Chapter XVIII (18): A familiar face makes an appearance and a message is sent by an unusual means.

Chapter XIX (19): Grace's husband's pet name for her is 'Loyalheart'.

Chapter XX (20):

a. Sadly, the Native American speaks in the ghastly dialect writers inflicted on them back then.

b. The Chief Forester and a special agent show up.

c. The book jumps ahead five weeks and then to Christmas.

d. Tom and Grace's adopted daughter, Yvonne, was rescued by Grace probably in Grace Harlowe With the Red Cross in France, or Grace Harlowe With the Marines at Chateau Thierry or Grace Harlow With the U. S. Troops in the Argonne.

e. Elfreda probably met Little Silver in Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert.

f. Given that most of the book takes place in summer and the baby is four weeks old at Christmas, Grace must have been pregnant during the Lost River adventure.

There's plenty more action than a mere forest fire in this book. There are bandits, wild animals, a Native American, and a legendary lost gold mine. Even the last two unmarried women in the group find husbands, although their romances are hardly center stage. There are a couple of racists touches, some of the unnamed female characters are hysterical and useless, and the fat boy of the Overland Riders is mostly comic relief, but on the whole, it's not a bad book. ( )