As she went down into the inky depths Chessie's mind went wild. She could not swim... From the moment brash bargeman Erasmous (Rass) King rescued her from the murky canal waters, Catherine Ophelia Cunningham had difficulty being betoken to this self-made man. Yet, motherless at four and the sole support of her handicapped father, Chessie calls on him in one mistake after another as she takes a barge down the C&O Canal in 1850.