The son of an English earl is stolen at three by his father's enemy and raised as a swordsman who does not know his own name - and grows up to lead an outlaw band against the barons in the war of Simon de Montfort. Burroughs failed at ranching, gold dredging and selling pencil sharpeners before deciding at thirty-five that he could write better than what he was reading; this was his second novel, written the same year as Tarzan.