The frontier in 1777 produced white men so savage as to be men in name only. These outcasts and renegades lived among the savages and perpetrated all manner of fiendish cruelties upon the settlers. And while the border produced such outlaws, so did it produce great hunters such as Wetzel, that strange, silent man whose deeds are whispered in awe by the settlers. He was a frontiersman, protector of the settlers against marauding white men and Indians. To the Indians he was a shadow, a spirit of the border, which breathed menace from the dark forests.