Summer 1786. Two fifteen-year-old orphan boys are on a sailboat from Southampton, England, for the Northeast Pacific. Alexis, of Acadian origin, searches for what remains of her dispersed family, and Hugh dreams of a better life. But a hungry young cougar comes to shake up the fate of the teenagers once they arrive on the North American continent. While Hugh, injured, is rescued by a member of the crew, Alexis, lost in the forest, ends up in a native village struck down by smallpox. Among the corpses, only a young girl is still alive. She and Alexis will help each other to survive...