For fifteen year old Rosalind, an orphan from Chicago, life on her grandparent’s ranch in early twentieth century Montana came as a shock. Honest hard working ranch folk, conscienceless cattle thieves. School lessons at the kitchen table. Her own pony to ride. A lonely ranch house from which a pale gleam of oil lamps spread out among the bare wastes of Montana. In one room Grandma and Rosalind working over a bloodied and unconscious young man; in the kitchen two men cleaning and loading their weapons. Another young man galloping through the dark storm wracked night, carbine in hand, trying to find the doctor and the Sheriff. A tough, handsome young Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant visiting the local Sheriff. Then, abducted by rustlers on her sixteenth birthday Rosalind faces the choice of submitting to the gang, or dying friendless and alone in the wild, empty land.