Major Arthur Marston had marked Rusty Sabin as his enemy. The red-haired white leader of the Cheyennes owned White Horse, the great stallion, and he had won the love of Maisry Lester. The prettiest girl and the swiftest horse on the plains — and these the Major thought should belong to him, not to Rusty, the man the Indians called Red Hawk. Then Rusty forced him to release a prisoner, a thief who had once saved Rusty's life. Enraged by this humiliation, Marston led his troops out across the prairie, determined to destroy his enemy.

And so the stage was set for a showdown between the two men — Marston, the treacherous Indian fighter who swore he would write his name in Cheyenne blood, and Red Hawk, the adopted son of a Cheyenne chief.