The time is the 1930s. The loot is bootleg liquor, not pirate gold. And the ship is the "Black Joke," the speediest, nimblest craft on the Newfoundland coast -- Jonathon Spence, owner and master. An unwelcome passenger enmeshes the boat and her crew (young Peter and Kye) in danger and near destruction...until the fiercely independent people of the island of Miquelon are caught up in the fate of the "Black Joke" and the cargo aboard her.