In addition to his works in Native American history and culture, McNickle wrote short stories and novels. His best-known work may be his debut novel, The Surrounded (1936). It tells of Archilde León, a young half-Salish man who returns to the Flathead Indian Reservation and his parents' ranch. He has difficulty dealing with both his ethnic Latino/white father and his traditionalist Indian mother, who has increasingly returned to her culture. The relationship between him and his parents becomes strained when they express their regret that he wants to go away to a big city far from home.[10]
León begins to find his place on the reservation after Modeste, an elder, teaches him the stories of Salish history. He reconciles with his father and adopts his mother's Salish traditions. At the end of the novel, he is wrongly accused of two murders (one committed by his mother) and surrenders to law enforcement in a scene referred to by the book's title.
