After saving former Confederate officer Ben Winthrop from a lynch mob, black mountain man, Caleb Johnson is talked into guiding him from Colorado to Oregon. He then lets himself be talked into spending two years there helping Ben get his ranch started. But he wants to get back to his little cabin near Bear Creek, Colorado, even though he’ll miss Ben’s wife, Wenona, the Shoshone princess, and her two sons. Finally, though, Caleb puts his foot down. He saddles his horse, named Horse, and calls his dog, named Dog, and sets off for home, a journey that is anything but routine—or peaceful. It’s just normal chaos, though, until he gets to Wenona’s tribal village in Utah, and finds his Shoshone friend being threatened by a greedy rancher and land poacher who is moving to take over their traditional hunting ground. Now, Caleb’s a peace-loving man, but you just don’t threaten his friends. He’d planned to spend the winter with the Shoshone, and get rested up to resume his journey after the spring thaw.