Mose Cabot leaves Virginia as a young man, gets jobs on steamboats and works his way to Fort Benton, Montana. Along the way, he runs into a lost little boy named Gabriel Allsop. Together they strike out and file a mining claim in Montana Gulch. They work for three years at their mining claim before settling on a homestead in the Bitterroot Valley, where they build a horse ranch. This is a touching story about two boys who grow to manhood in the wilds of Montana in the early days when fortunes were made and lost in a heartbeat. It's a novel you'd expect from no other author but R. O. Lane.