texar and burbank are bitter enemies, burbank's northern view of slavery as an evil being an unpopular stance with texar and the rest of the community, deep in the confederate states of america. on top of this disagreement, though, texar is angry at burbank for past legal troubles burbank has brought upon texar, and, despite texar inventing a perfect alibi that allows him to escape conviction, texar feels the need for vengeance and eventually becomes a prominent and powerful member of the jacksonville community. using this newfound power, texar turns the townsfolk against burbank and leads a mob that destroys the burbank plantation, known as camdless bay. burbank's daughter dy and caretaker zermah are both kidnapped by a man claiming to be texar and are purportedly taken to a place in the everglades called carneral island. en route, and after enlisting the help of the united states navy, they find a separate group searching for texar in response to crimes that apparently happened in the same time as the ones at camdless bay but in a distant location. this opens up the realization that there is one real texar and one who is not, and the search continues now, not only for dy and zermah, but for the answer to this mystery.