It is 1889 when we meet Agnus McCaskill and Bob Barclay -- immigrants, "both of us nineteen and green as the cheese in the moon and trying our double-damndest not to show it." They are setting off for a new land, in America, in Montana.

We follow their fortunes for the next 30 years in Two Medicine county at the base of the Rockies: the building of homes and the raising of families, making a living and making a life. Here is a tale of the uncertainties of friendship, of brutal winters and battles of will, and of two loves; one delightful and heartbreaking in its intensity, the other born of sadness, equally moving and stoical devotion.