It is almost two years since Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn and apart from those few who have followed Sitting Bull into Canada, the Sioux have been chased out of the Black Hills and are now subjugated by life on a reservation. But rumours of unrest and a renewal of hostilities are causing concern among the people of the northern settlements. The arrival of a buckskin-clad stranger with eagle feathers affixed to his hat and the mane of his pony is greeted with curiosity and caution by the people of Palmersville. The violence that ensues when he voices sympathy for the plight of the tribes people might have been avoided if his attackers had first learned his name. For the stranger is wagon train scout Wes Gray, known throughout the west as Medicine Feather, brother of the Arapaho and friend of the Sioux.