Ride the River book by Louis L'Amour

Filled with exciting tales of the frontier, the chronicle of the Sackett family is perhaps the crowning achievement of one of our greatest storytellers. In Ride the River Louis L' Amour spins the tale of a young woman who has to protect her family fortune from a murderous thief -- and teaches him what it means to be a Sackett.... Sixteen-year-old Echo Sackett had never been far from her Tennessee home -- until she made the long trek to Philadelphia to collect an inheritance. Echo could take care of herself as well as any Sackett man, but James White, a sharp city lawyer, figured that cheating the money from the young country girl would be like taking candy from a baby. If he couldn' t hoodwink Echo out of the cash, he' d just steal it from her outright. And if she put up a fight? There were plenty of accidents that could happen to a country girl on her first trip to the big city....