characters are admirable - wise, restrained, and generous - and both are father figures to their respective heroines.Yellow Feather, Brown Bear's rogue son - The show's villain lampoons Rose-Maries villainous Black Eagle. Both have two-part names whose first word is a color and whose second word relates to birds. Yellow Feather's conversion to a flag waving patriot in the finale parallels the reform of the pirates in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. Fleet Foot, an Indian guide - Fleet Foot is elderly and no longer able to live up to his name. General Oscar Fairfax, Ret., an elderly Washington diplomat who likes to flirt with younger ladies - Oscar's bringing gifts for the young ladies and asking to be called "Uncle" recalls Uncle (or "Godfather") Drosselmeyer from Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker - although of course the aging roue is also a stock character in operetta and old-fashioned musical comedy.Young Ladies from the Eastchester Finishing School: Cora, Henrietta, Gwendolyn, Blanche, Maud, and Mabel (who has no lines). (Millicent added in the vocal score)Forest Rangers: Pete, Slim, Tex, Buster, Hank, and Tom (Chuck added in the vocal score) SynopsisTime: Early in "this" century i.e., the 20th centuryPlace: The Colorado Inn (shades of the White Horse Inn), high in the Rocky Mountains (standing in for the Tyrol) Act I Little Mary Sunshine, foster daughter of Chief Brown Bear of the Kadota tribe, is in trouble. The government is threatening to foreclose the mortgage on her Colorado Inn, located on land that is subject to a dispute between Brown Bear and Uncle Sam. On Mary's advice Brown Bear is engaged in peaceful legal proceedings rather than warfare to establish his rights. Captain Jim and his Forest Rangers arrive. They are searching for the disruptive Indian Yellow Feather. Yellow Feather's "crimes" are actually not murder and pillage but indiscriminate hunting and irresponsible use of fire in the forest, but he is nonetheless a villain of the deepest dye, who has threatened to "have his way" with Mary. Jim woos Mary, after which the two get well-sung advice from Mary's opera star guest Mme. Ernestine Liebedich. Some young ladies from the Eastchester Finishing School (implicitly in New York or Pennsylvania, which have Westchesters) are also Inn guests. While they entertain themselves playing croquet and swinging on swings, the Rangers come upon them. The Rangers' flirting elicits an immediate enthusiastic response, and love blooms once