Twelve-year-old Elizabeth Spicer is a plucky pioneer girl living in a time when settlers and frontiersmen are pushing Native American Indians off their lands, invading their hunting grounds, and killing them. As she and her family go about their daily life in a log cabin in Pennsylvania, they begin to hear rumblings that the Indians are on the warpath. When she glances up one day and sees Indians approaching their cabin, Elizabeth does not realize that her life is about to be changed forever.

Without any idea of what has happened to the rest of her family, Elizabeth is captured along with her brother, Billy, and taken to a Shawnee village by Singing Arrow, a fierce warrior. Fearing her parents are dead, Elizabeth bravely attempts to learn the Indian culture and befriends the daughter of Elizabeth's adoptive mother, Raincloud. While Elizabeth nurses a grudge against Singing Arrow, Billy throws himself into his new life. As they learn to survive in different ways, Elizabeth and Billy discover the bonds of friendship, the value of peace, and the significance of unconditional love.

In this tale based on a true story, a feisty pioneer girl and her brother must find happiness among a Shawnee Indian tribe after they are captured and taken away from their family and home.