Just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, is the city of Vancouver, Washington, and there, before there was any state of Washington, or any state of Oregon, in territory which both the United States and England were claiming, stood Fort Vancouver, the principal western post of the great fur trading company, the Hudson's Bay Company of England. Here Dr. John McLoughlin, a man big in soul and body, ruled as chief factor. He governed not only the fort and fur traders, but the thousands of Indians who made up the population of the then uncivilized country. They called him Great Tyee, Great Chief.

It was to this fort that Henri LeGrand, the voyageur, brought young Donald MacDermott to place him under the guidance of the great White-headed Eagle. Donald's fear that at heart he was only a tenderfoot was conquered when he won the feather of the Northmen.

Although he missed his mother, White Cloud of the Crees, he lived by the voyageur creed: "Keep a high heart!" He didn't like school, but he went—to the first school west of the Rockies; he had wonderful rides on Bluebelle; he went with George Allen on his rounds to visit the sick Indians; he rescued Mia from the tribe that held the little girl captive; and then he, himself, was seized by Three Gulls, the medicine man with the tomaniwas eye. It took a great deal of courage to be worthy of the Northman feather, but Young Mac was worthy.

This is a story about the typical sons of the fur trade, whose fathers were traders and whose mothers were Indian woman. It is their story—these boys!

From the dust jacket