A narrator, Joseph Coleman, recounts adventures with his twin Mark and three friends—Duke Hampton, Herbert Dickson, and Gabriel Sandy Todd—on and around their father’s large Mississippi plantation. The boys hunt with a small pack of notable dogs, set traps, and repeatedly clash with a troublesome rival while pursuing runaway parties and Indian trackers. The narrative moves through captures and rescues, planned stratagems, a Christmas turkey hunt, picket duty and a risky back-track, culminating in an unexpected deliverance that tests their loyalty, courage and practical resourcefulness.