"When young Gordon Elliot was sent to Alaska by the Commissioner of the General Land Office to investigate the validity of the Kamatlah claims, he was warned about Colby MacDonald. "The biggest man in Alaska, bar none," they said. But they also said: "If you won't get out of his road, he peels your hide off and hangs it up to dry." Well, one of the reasons they sent Elliot was because they knew he didn't scare and that he could be trusted to bring back the facts. What the Commissioner couldn't know was that Sheba O'Neill was also going up the Yukon to Kusiak and that both Elliot and MacDonald would fall in love with her. Or that MacDonald would be set upon and nearly murdered by thieving miners he had once fired and that Elliot would be charged with the crime. Or that a crusty old timer, Gideon Holt, would give Elliot not only the facts he needed to prove that MacDonald's claims to the Kamatlah coal mines were invalid, but also would link the great man directly with the death of Sheba O'Neill's father. Elliott and MacDonald fought a bitter battle for love and power, wealth and justice as each saw justice. Only one of them could win, and one did, but even when it was all over it would be hard to say which had been the better man."--