The story is set in Maine shortly after the Revolutionary War. Poor settlers have moved into the backwoods and scratched farms out of the wilderness. Rich land owners, with deeds from the King of England, claim the land and want the settlers to pay them for it or get off. Tempers are riled and both sides are armed and looking for a fight.

In the midst of this turmoil, 17-year-old Peter Loon is sent by his mother to look for her old love after her husband, Peter’s father, dies. Peter meets up with Parson Leach, a traveling minister and book seller, who is a man of action when necessary but devoted to keeping the peace. He takes Peter under his wing and they travel together along with two hunters, Manasseh Cutts and Crispin Moss. They soon meet up with Nathan Barrow, the chief of the settler rabble-rousers. Barrow has convinced a local innkeeper to give him his daughter Nora. When Leach and Peter are nice to the girl, she follows them to escape Barrow. He follows and threatens, but Leach, the two hunters and Peter face him down. Leach takes Peter to the home of Captain Clayton, one of the chief land owners, but a kind man. Clayton and his daughters take Nora and care for her. Peter and Leach set off for where the settlers are gathering to break several of their number out of jail. (They were arrested for beating a surveyor hired by the land owners.) Failing to stop the rabble, Leach disappears. Peter gets caught up in the fury and travels to the jail with the mob. But Leach has beaten the crowd, and with Clayton, has defused the problem. The imprisoned settlers have already been released on the condition that they leave the state. Barrow tries to pick a fight with Leach and is arrested. Peter goes home to find that his mother has gone off with her old lover and taken Peter’s siblings. He wanders in time back to Claytons where Emily, one of Clayton’s daughters, advises him to take a berth on one of the Clayton family’s ships, get rich and come back and marry her. Peter thinks this is a pretty good idea. Nora, meanwhile, is being courted by Crispin Moss, whom, I’m guessing, is supposed to be an ancestor of Sundry Moss from the Moosepath books.

Not as good as the Moosepath books, lacking their wacky humor, but still a good read. The characters are well drawn and likeable. The setting is well-painted. The events of the settler vs. land owner feud I found of little interest, but it’s based on real history and so educational.