North Carolina, late autumn, 1782. A Scottish emigrant trapper, known among the Cherokee as Little Bear, has just made a deal with a Hessian colonel: he's purchased the survivors of the colonel's recent raid on a small Indian village. The bachelor isn't sure what to do with the tattered group of women and children, but he must hide them from the greedy mercenary sergeant who wants them back...along with Little Bear's hidden stash of gold.