The Burton homestead has lived in peace with its white and Indian neighbors for thirty years, but a murder campaign by new chief Buffalo Horn finds the family forced to choose their loyalty by belligerents from both sides. Sam Burton wants to weather the storm, but when the neighboring Howard homestead is massacred, the local whites turn on the Burtons because Sam's wife Neddy is an Indian, and his second son Pacer a half-breed. The Burton allegiance is also coveted by Buffalo Horn and his young brave Two Moons, while Sam's white son Clint is pressured by the locals back at the crossroads to defect to the all-white camp. Only the Burtons and local girl Roslyn Pierce can see beyond the hysteria, and soon more violence breaks out.