The story takes place over one summer on the Goose Bar Ranch, outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Although no year is specified, the details suggest that the time is the late 1930s. The Wyoming landscape dominates this book and its two sequels. The descriptions of the isolated ranch house, which the McLaughlins have made beautiful with a careful respect for the integrity of materials and design, complement the magnificent scenes of Saddle Back, Castle Rock, and the valley. The ranch is so isolated that it forms a world with its own values. Only rarely do outsiders— the doctor, veterinarian, buyers for the horses—come in. The isolation of the ranch helps to make plausible the importance of the animals in the story.

Each animal has a distinct personality, and the humans interact with them as can happen only where there are few other people.

Beyond the house...