James Fenimore Cooper 
The Pathfinder 
or The Inland Sea

In the third installment of the Leatherstocking Tales, Cooper takes his main character, here called the Pathfinder (Natty Bumppo) and examines his role as an explorer for British/Colonial forces in the forests and islands around the Great Lakes. The story is a classic historical adventure/romance and Bumppo falls in love, for the first and only time in the five novels, only to see his choice fall in love with another man – a younger man and good friend of Natty’s. The Pathfinder remains a classic and entertaining account of the American wilderness and of aspects of human experience in the New World. Probably the best of the five Leatherstocking novels.