After his father's death, innocent Martin Bishop is left with nothing financially. He is however left with his father's belief that "if a man loses everything but still chooses to do what's right, then he's lost nothing at all", a belief to which Martin clings. He decides to head north to take a job on one of the Great Slave Lake Railroad's remote construction crews, working as its timekeeper, the person who keeps the records of hours worked for payroll. Martin quickly learns of the rampant corruption at his camp, led by the sadistic foreman, Fisk, who orders Martin to inflate his hours worked, and keep on the payroll those men who he has banished from the camp in order to pocket their wages. Those banished men are left to fend for themselves since they are provided no means of transportation out and have no money. They survive living off the scraps of food from the camp's dump, which is why they're referred to as the "garbage eaters".