The true story of Ward Allen, a white aristocrat, and Christmas Moultrie, a freed slave, in the early 1900's. Ward Allen was a romantic naturalist in the vein of Thoreau, an aristocrat who turned his back on a life of material comfort to become a market hunter. He and Christmas Moultrie became business partners, confidantes and life-long friends and together they tried to navigate the vicissitudes of social, industrial, environmental and personal change that threatened their way of life.