Cholera onboard a riverboat plying the Missoury Riverf Breaks of Montana territoy in 1865. The captain chooses to quarentine the passangers on shore as a means of stopping the onboard deaths. Gold hungry apassengers object to stopping as they are egar to reach the gold discoveries. They force the captain to leave a family at the quarintine camp and plow on upriver to Fort Benton. The thirteen-year-old son becomes othaned an abandon in the wilderness. He meets an anchient grizzly that becomes his "wyakin" (spirit guide).