f the award-winning novels, The Indian Fighter and The Cow Hunters (Florida Historical Society, Patrick D. Smith Award), this is the First novel in the "Tropical Frontier" series. NOTE: This volume INCLUDES "The Wreckers," the separate and stand-alone novel formatted especially for young readers.The Southern Frontier: A road-less, watery wilderness, uninviting and intimidating to all but the most stouthearted and adventurous. As great cities were springing up in places with names such as St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco, the lower peninsula of Florida endured. Here, the panther, the alligator, and the bald eagle remained safe from the restless, meddlesome hands of civilization, continuing as they had for eons past.Renegade Indians, pirates, hurricanes, and man-eating animals - not to mention poisonous snakes and bloodthirsty hordes of mosquitoes - reigned supreme. It took a certain kind of person to boldly venture into such an inhospitable environment where a man had only himself and his family upon which to depend. It took men and women with not only vision, but backbone and grit, people like the MacLeods, Dawsons, and Hackensaws, true pioneers who confronted whatever came their way, together, as a family.From shipwrecks, to Indian uprisings, to buried treasure; blockade runners, to murderous beach tramps, and the sad, lonely life of the solitary beachcomber, Tales of Old Florida takes the reader back to a singular time and place that will never be seen again. Above all, Tales of Old Florida is an epic saga of survival and prosperity, love and love lost, and most importantly, the power of the human spirit to prevail.