A tiny isolated settlement compresses all human passions at full intensity.

Evidence

For, in truth, this blue hollow, lying solitary at the foot of Long’s Peak, is a miniature world of great interest, in which love, jealousy, hatred, envy, pride, unselfishness, greed, selfishness, and self-sacrifice can be studied hourly, and there is always the unpleasantly exciting risk of an open quarrel with the neighboring desperado, whose “I’ll shoot you!” has more than once been heard in the cabin. … They get little help from Evans, either as to elk or locations, and go away disgusted and unsuccessful. Two Englishmen of refinement and culture camped out here prospecting a few weeks ago, and then, contrary to advice, crossed the mountains into North Park, where gold is said to abound, and it is believed that they have fallen victims to the bloodthirsty Indians of the region. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 133

Categorization

• STORYSTEM: A single remote cabin as a pressure-cooker world where every human passion plays out hourly and a gunslinger’s threat echoes through the walls — a ready-made setting for an isolated-community drama.
• BMF: The miniature world at the foot of Long’s Peak, where strangers vanish into unverified Indian violence, recalls the isolated, rumor-saturated frontier spaces of A Very Minor Prophet.