Summary
Amid crystalline drifts of a nameless frontier winter, Margot Sperry—half feral muse, half reluctant Penelope—skulks between skeletal spruces, pilfering bacon and kerosene from the gilded Bates enclave while her guardian-professor dreams of devolution by candle-glow. Enter Divvy, betrothed to propriety yet allergic to its perfume; one glimpse of Margot’s soot-smudged cheekbones and the engagement ring becomes a manacle he yearns to shatter. Baptiste, a métis outsider whose blood carries both voyageur song and colonial resentment, is exiled for petty larceny; he answers with Promethean fire, turning silk tents into auroras of vengeance and driving the pillared Bates clan toward Margot’s rough-hewn hearth. Elsie, corseted rival, cinches her waist with desperation, then trades crinoline for buckskin in a futile masquerade, hoping to refract Divvy’s obsession through borrowed optics. The triangulation combusts: Baptiste and Elsie bind Margot like a living trophy, paddle her through moon-ribbed rapids toward thundering cataracts, until guilt detonates in Elsie’s breast and Divvy—half Orpheus, half frontiersman—plunges after, fists against flinty water, to wrench his muse from the maw of gravity itself.
Synopsis
Margot Sperry, who keeps house for her guardian, a professor who wants to revert to primitive modes of living, finds it difficult to find food in the winter wilderness and resorts to pilfering from the Bates's winter camp. Divvy, engaged to a girl he does not love, meets Margot on one of her raids and falls in love with her. Baptiste, a half-breed employed by the Bates family, is discharged for stealing and burns the camp, driving the family to refuge with Margot. Elsie, hoping to regain Divvy's affections, dresses in boyish clothes similar to Margot's. Joining forces with Baptiste, they capture Margot, and Baptiste takes her in a canoe downstream. Realizing her mistake, Elsie warns Divvy, who bests the half-breed and then rescues Margot from the falls.
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