Editing How the West Was Won (film) (section)

===The Rivers (1839)===
[[File:Westwon trailer rivers.png|left|thumb|300px|The settlers' [[raft]] is caught in [[rapids]].]]

Zebulon Prescott and his family set out west for the frontier on the [[Erie Canal]]. They are pulled through the first section on a barge and then build rafts to continue on the [[Ohio River]]. Along the journey, they meet [[mountain man]] Linus Rawlings, who is traveling to [[Pittsburgh]] to [[Fur trade|trade his furs]]. Rawlings and Zebulon's eldest daughter, Eve, are attracted to each other, but he is not ready to settle down.

Rawlings stops at an isolated trading post, which is actually a front run by a clan of [[river pirate]]s. Linus is led into a cave, stabbed in the back, and then pushed down a hole. The pirates steal his furs and sink his canoe. Wounded, Linus follows them. When they are about to rob the Prescott party, Linus intervenes and helps the Prescotts kill all of the pirates.

The Prescotts continue down the river. When the lead raft is caught in [[rapids]], Zebulon and his wife Rebecca drown; Linus arrives to help bury them. Deciding he cannot live without Eve, he asks to marry her and take her to Pittsburgh, but she insists on homesteading at the spot where her parents died.