These Thousand Hills - A.B. Guthrie Jr.

Conjuring up the ephemeral world of cattle ranchers in the 1880s, this intimate saga delights in a Montana community's boisterous, wanderlusting eccentrics as they chase after love and their unbridled ambitions. At its center is Lat Evans, good-hearted and yet seduced by the possibilities for prosperity in his new life; gradually he discerns how the perils of the natural world, and most especially human nature, can conspire to frustrate a young man's best intentions.