Running West

Youthful love between a Scottish mapmaker and the resourceful Chipewyastet Indian woman who guides him through Canada's uncharted terrain west of the Hudson Bay drives this historical adventure. Houston ( The White Dawn ) draws on actual letters and journals of the Hudson's Bay Company to narrate a star-crossed romance in the alternating voices of the two lovers, William Stewart, banished from the Scottish Highlands after a duel, and the maiden Thanadelthur, held captive in a British fort after her family was massacred. Their relationship, while tender and touching, seems more like a charming fantasy than the tragic tale the author obviously intends it to be. Set in the period 1714-1717, this saga vividly evokes the clash of British, French and Indian forces, the virgin beauty and peril of a remote wilderness, the rigors of a killing winter, the colonizers' lust for furs and precious metals. A map and precise line drawings add period flavor. (Apr.)