Scranton Roy is the son of a Quaker father and a reclusive poet mother. When a traveling drama troupe visits his Pennsylvania community in the nineteenth century, Scranton is smitten by a tall, slender blonde actress who wants nothing to do with him. Angry at her rejection, Scranton enlists in the U. S. Cavalry in St. Paul, Minnesota. After training, his company marches west and raids an Ojibwa village.

Despite Scranton's Quaker heritage, he takes part in the indiscriminate killing and bayonets an old woman. As he pulls the bayonet from her body, he sees his own mother in her. Disgusted with his own savagery, Scranton runs away, but as he flees, he sees a dog with a baby strapped to its body.

After pursuing the dog for several days, he befriends it and begins to care for the baby, whom he nurses as if he were female...