The narrative follows a city merchant whose involvement in smuggling and a gambling habit leads to financial ruin, prompting him and his wife to seek renewal in the Maine woods. Rural life, hunting and trapping expeditions, and frontier labor provide moral and practical tests for the family and their neighbors. Their son becomes a skilled woodsman, engaging in dangerous hunts, rescues, and a developing romance with an Indigenous chief's daughter, while a scheming antagonist from his past stirs conflict. Episodes of forest scenery, timber work, and spiritual allegory probe themes of vice, redemption, and the harsh intimacy of wilderness life.