In the midst of a cruel winter in the Rockies, Barnaby Skye's Crow Indian wife is critically wounded during an attack by Blackfeet. The raiders leave Skye and Victoria stranded in their frozen camp with no horses and little food. When, miraculously, two horses wander into the camp, Victoria believes they have received a gift from her spirit helper. Soon she and Skye are able to travel toward Victoria's home on the Musselshell River. Their journey is interrupted by a party of renegade white men with a wagonload of cheap and poisonous whiskey they intend to trade to the Indians--including Victoria's people, the Crow.