When Emily Collins returns to the Bitterroot Valley for a summer visit, her identity is mistaken for that of a wealthy, notorious woman with the same first name. While the error begins on an amusing note, it quickly develops into sour repercussions. Now twenty-five-years old, and still unmarried, her fierce ambition stumbles at a crossroad with her desire for a husband and a family. As the daughter of a diligent, faithful frontier preacher, she has seen both extremes society has to offer when her father retires at the family home of Boston. Her father disapproves of the man Emily hopes to marry and heartily endorses a summer trip far away from the social life of Boston. It is during her stay with the O'Rielly family that she learns of a scandal that engulfs the family of her former beau. Fifteen-year-old Rorie O'Rielly, a Cree Indian, adopted as a youngster by the O'Rielly family, eagerly awaits the return of the Nez Perce buffalo hunters as they head homeward from the plains to the lush valleys of the Wallowa. He has been granted the job of bringing back a small string of horses for breeding stock. A promise to a dying man catapults him into a summer of life-or-death knife-edge adventure, unexpected fortune, and stretches his loyalty to a Christian brother. Emily unexpectedly fulfills her goal of making a splash in life when she steps forward with the humble task of helping lonely children in a government Indian school. She also battles a shrewd businesswoman to rekindle romance with her teenaged first-love, Anthony O'Rielly. Rorie and his two younger brothers stumble into the acquaintance of the colorful Doc Holliday and eventually, a guarded and reluctant friendship. Throughout the entire summer, Emily struggles with the complications that result from and the townspeople who are convinced that she has deceived them by impersonating their senator's daughter. Rorie finds the "warrior's test" that he has longed for has a higher price than he co