Pierre Ryder has been forged by the sternest of frontier Jesuits for the hard life of a missionary priest in the frozen wastes of the Far North. Into this life of gentleness, a thunderbolt descends in the form of a letter from his father, long thought dead, who lies dying of a bullet wound. Ignoring the pleas of the good priests, Pierre rides at once to avenge his father, into a life and a country far from all he has ever known. When he meets Jackqueline Boone, their lives are changed forever.