A River Ran Out Of Eden; by James Vance Marshall.

Charming and decent tale of a boy protecting a golden seal from a hunter, with the latter threatening his parents and home. The book is unequivocal about the cunning and menace of the hunter unlike the film Golden Seal based on the book, which rather equivocates about the virtues of the hunter and the father. I remember the mother of the boy threatened in the book while the film leaves those parts out too. But the film is visually rather a pleasure.