It is 1777, early in the Revolutionary War, when fleet young Barnabas Locke runs against an hourglass to become a courier in Captain Whitcomb's Rangers. In the defense of Fort Ticonderoga, he is dispatched as a solo spy to track the movements of troops and gunboats as British General "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne masses his forces for the expected assault down Lake Champlain. Barnabas reunites with his close friend, the Abenaki warrior and visionary Squando, rescues a free man of color, and outwits a foppish British lieutenant, who becomes an intractable enemy. In a race against time, armed with his tomahawk and a pistol, he is pursued by three wily Huron warriors, steals a fractious British horse, and encounters another spy on the run. Barnabas Locke is fictional, but historic figures march across the pages of his story, including the battlefield rescue of the heroic General Benedict Arnold.