Eleven year old Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in the Montana Rockies. But in this final novel by the author of The Eleventh Man, when Gram has to have surgery in the summer of 1951, she sends Donal off to her tyrannical sister Kate in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Aunt Kate henpecks her good-natured husband, Herman the German, and Donal can't seem to get on her good side either. When an exasperated Kate sends Donal back to Montana on the next Greyhound, Herman the German has decided to fly the coop with him. As the pair light out for the territory together, they meet a colorful ensemble of characters and have rollicking misadventures along the way.