When Dick Rutherford, "The Colonel" loses everything in a horse race, he heads West hunting his fortune. He and his companion, bright, young Christy Deever, have many adventures on the frontier, eventually finding themselves adopted members of the Mandan Indian tribe.

There they meet Stone-That-Shines, a Mandan warrior who has an eponymous medicine stone. The Colonel discovers that the stone contains a rich vein of quartz gold, whose source could be the answer to his problems. But things get complicated when The Quail, a beautiful Mandan maiden, joins then on the trail. She has refused marriage to the war chief, Ompah, in spite of his unprecedented gift of ten fine horses. Although her skills are needed in the wilderness, her presence is drawing the pursuit of Ompah and his warriors.