Orphaned Becky Pumroy was forced to live a life of drudgery and servitude when her parents were killed during an Indian attack. She had almost resigned herself to picking up after the spoiled Leggett girls when she received some startling news: wealthy Joshua Smeed wanted to marry her.

But Mr. Smeed was much older - and rumor had it he helped put his previous wives in their early graves. Rather than meet the same fate, Becky ran away with her brother Eseck, a young man who had lived with the Indians for five years.

Becky knew that the American wilderness was dangerous - with wild animals that roamed free, with harsh and unrelenting winters, with Indians who no doubt were ready to destroy her brother and herself.

But what Becky found was something very different indeed - a place and a people that wouldn't change her life forever....