Description of "Laird of the Prairie" Because Peter was an orphan, Hell's Kitchen in the 1860s was his home; if you could call it a home-a blanket on the floor of a run-down tenement building. Peter Von Rijn worked for the New York Water Authority from the time he could use a shovel. He wanted to escape from a life that would lead only to crime, but the escape was not the one he'd planned. A tryst with the daughter Stuyvesant, one of the wealthiest man in New York sends him on the run. With four killers closing in on him in a rail yard, Peter escapes in a livestock rail car and begins a new life. With the help of a jockey and a Scottish noble family, he learns not only to shoot a gun and ride a horse, but also to read and write. Peter begins a new life crossing the untamed country while working with this family, not knowing that he is still being sought by killers and unaware that his grandfather is also looking for him. He becomes an Indian scout for a wagon train out of St.Louis. There is plenty of romance and gun fighting action.