Based on actual historical figures and events, this is a gripping survival story filled with fast friendships and cruel betrayals, cowardice and greed, and courage and generosity. Pierre Talon's remarkable adventure will captivate young readers.When eleven-year-old Pierre Talon sets out in 1684 on what became the last, ill-fated expedition of the great French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, he hopes to find help for his family, who are struggling in a settlement being decimated by hunger, illness, and Indian attacks. But the expedition to relocate the Mississippi River unravels when La Salle and his closest aides are murdered. Pierre falls deathly ill, and into the hands of the Hasinai Indians. To his surprise, he finds that the Hasinai have a well-ordered, prosperous, and peaceful community. Soon Pierre must choose between embracing the Hasinai ways or risking his life to hold on to his European identity.