Joseph J. Coutts was a teacher at St. Anthony School at age twenty-five. He lived—and had an affair—with a widow called Dorea Ann Swivel. Unhappy with his situation, he decides to join Reginald Bull on a town-site expedition of what will become the town of Pluto.

The expedition almost kills Joseph and the party nearly starve and freeze to death. After they arrive at the town-site, Joseph kills an otter, but later realises that it might have been an emissary. He returns to St. Anthony poorer than he had left. He takes the death of the otter as an omen and decides to become a lawyer.

Later, when Pluto had grown into an actual town, Joseph moves there and marries a Chippewa woman. They have a son who inherits the land in Pluto and also becomes a lawyer. Joseph is the grandfather of Antone Bazil Coutts who later reads his grandfather’s journals.