Hawkeye (The First Frontier)

Hawkeye saves Virginia merchant William Shields and his wife when they're ambushed by hostile Indians on their way to open a trading post at Fort Bennington, but then Shields is captured by the French through the machinations of his treacherous brother, an officer at the fort.

Elizabeth talks Hawkeye into guiding her to the French fort so she can negotiate for the release of her husband, but they step right into the middle of the war.

After Elizabeth's encounter with a bear, she decides to take lessons from Hawkeye in wilderness-survival skills, in exchange for teaching Hawkeye how to read, but ammunition thieves bent on selling their stolen goods to the French interrupt them.

Hawkeye saves a settler from the French trader who kidnapped her, but killing him prompts revenge from the trader's Huron allies.

The French have laid siege to the British fort, and rumor has it that they are bringing up an enormous cannon.

Hurons kidnap an infant from the fort, and any attempt to get the child back could spark a war.