John Creed is a loner, a buffalo wolf - till he meets Polly Chantry. Each of them has a reason to be making their separate ways from Tamarack Creek to the diggings. Creed has letters to deliver. Polly is looking for her father. Then fate throws them together as they struggle to get through. At the diggings they meet with Timber Wolf Flynn and his Sauk wife, White Fawn, but there is no sign of Polly's father. Creed and Polly set out on a double mission; to find Polly's father and acquire weapons to help the prospectors fight off the increasing threat from the outlaws. Their quest leads them high into the mountains and a frightening discovery at Gaunt's Peak. From there the trail leads to an unexpected encounter with the Sioux and another confrontation with the outlaws, before the decisive showdown and a shattering denouement back at the diggings. At the end, will Creed still be a buffalo wolf?