Mari Sandoz has written one good book after another, including "Old Jules," "Cheyenne Autumn" and "Buffalo Hunters." These are solid studies of the Old West, displaying not only great knowledge of an area and a period but a great sympathy and an intuitive understanding; at times this has seemed almost a personal involvement, as if the author had actually lived through the times she described and experienced them at first hand. These books, though listed as fiction, hardly seem like novels at all, but more like memoirs of the time. The story is allowed to take care of itself while incident follows incident—chaotic, seemingly pointless at times, but all contributing to a vivid, naturalistic, almost hallucinatory picture of the times.

In "Miss Morissa, Doctor of the Gold Trail," Miss Sandoz has tried to write a more conventional type of fiction. I am sorry to say that, in...