Barnaby Skye, along with his wives, agrees to take a Quaker missionary, Dr.William Penn Sitgreaves, his wife Abigail who accompanies him reluctantly, and his party, to Owen's Fort in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana, where the Quakers intend to begin a mission to the Indians. The Skyes discover that Dr. Sitgreaves, far from being a soft man, has a backbone of steel, and it takes steel to found a mission in the wilds.