The Prairie marks the final chapter in James Fenimore Cooper's great saga of American frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Though nearly ninety in 1804, Bumppo, now on the Great Plains, is still a competent frontiersman and trapper. Once more he is drawn into conflict with society in the form of an emigrant party led by the surly Ishmael Bush and his miscreant brother-in-law, Abiram White. And once again, this great man of nature is called upon to exhibit his courage and resourcefulness to rescue the innocent.