The Prairie (1827), the final novel in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, follows the aging frontiersman Natty Bumppo, now an old trapper living his last years on the vast American Great Plains. When the Bush family, led by patriarch Ishmael Bush, squats on the prairie, conflicts arise involving the abducted Inez, her husband Middleton, young beekeeper Paul Hover, and Ellen Wade. As rival Sioux and Pawnee tribes clash, the wise and noble Trapper guides the settlers through hardship and danger. The novel closes with Natty's peaceful death, seated among the Pawnee facing the setting sun—a poignant farewell to Cooper's iconic hero.
