A little girl, crying each night, appears to be a ghost from The Donner Party. Many people hear her, but she appears each night to Charlie, who questions his own sanity.
Charlie Wooster and Barnaby West have the task of escorting Dr. Katy Piper and her daughters to join up with the Chris Hale wagon train. Barnaby is forced to shoot a masked bandit who has hijacked the Piper wagon and ends up killing the bandit. The bandit turns out to be a teenage boy, and though Barnaby is cleared of any wrong doing, he carries the guilt of the killing and the judge tasks him with telling the boy's mother of the death. His guilt is manifested in the stigma of a constantly bleeding gun hand, though there is no physical wound. Barnaby ultimately quits ...