On the northern shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Cliff Fort has stood for years, carrying on its business of trapping and trade among the natives in isolation, and without competition.

Yet new waves of emigration are pushing settlers into even the northernmost wilderness. Now the men of the trading post, led by Englishman Reginald Redding and Scottish-born Bob Smart, find the world growing more complicated, day by day. A family of MacLeods have settled on Jenkins Creek, and have set up a saw mill -- right on the edge of the Company's legally-purchased lands, as if in purposeful provocation. And now the MacLeods are introducing the local Indians to fire-water -- and threatening, worst of all, to steal away the fur trade!

R.M. Ballantyne is the author of such adventure tales as The Pirate City and The Dog Crusoe and His Master.