Chancy sets out from the Ohio farm where he'd lived for four years with the Starbuck family, determined to find his sisters, Indiana, Mirandy and Jamie. "Kin belonged together, didn't they?" His Uncle Will in turn finds him and turns out to be the grandest rascal of all, who "could out-talk, out-laugh, and out-fix any man" on the Ohio or Mississippi rivers.
Skinny Chancy and his newly found friend, the great rascal, enjoy humorous escapades as they travel by their wits up and across the Midwest in search of Chancy's family.
