The man in the poster is Louis Riel, and in this powerfully wrought historical novel by Jan Truss, Paul Gauthier has been chosen to play Riel in a school play at a time in his life when new menaces threaten the small Metis settlement where he lives with his family.

Convinced that such menaces can be fought with the same spirit that emboldened Riel, Paul and his young Indian friend Simon Buffalo set out to thwart a government plan to raze the settlement to make room for a new highway.