In 1757 a deadly common bond unites strong-willed Alice Winslow, a girl from New Hampshire Colony whose family was massacred by Abnaki Indians, and Nathaniel Hawke, a half-savage frontiersman who was raised by the Mohawk after his family was killed by a Huron war party. As England and France vie for control of the colonies with the aid of their Indian allies, Alice and Nathaniel embark on a dangerous journey through enemy territory to rescue a little boy being held for ransom by the unscrupulous Frenchman who was behind the massacres that have brought these two survivors together. On their trek through the New York wilderness they confront a charge of sedition, the ferocity of the warring Indian tribes, a bitterly cold winter, betrayal, abduction by the enemy and the harsh realities of life and death, only to be transformed along the way by the healing power of love and a simple act of mercy.