Jacob is a young colonial boy who is unjustly accused of murder and must flee for his life. Captured by the fearsome Iroquois Indians, he is adopted into the Seneca Tribe where he makes a new life for himself. But, some years later, he is forced to leave the Seneca by the English and he eventually makes his way back to Pennsylvania to his brother and the woman he loves. However, there he discovers the colonies are in the midst of a rebellion and that neutrality is not an option. Throwing his lot in with the Patriots, he fights both in the far west and in the Carolina Colonies with Daniel Morgan. But, when he finds that the Colonial Congress has condoned and rewarded the despicable slaughter of Iroquois women and children, he leaves the army determined to take his family far into the west were he shall have to deal with neither English nor Colonial.