Joe Meek, a naive and inexperienced teenager, arrives on the frontier with no formal education. Eventually, he rises to become one of the most respected and beloved mountain men of the entire frontier era. Upon joining the trapping brigade of legendary trapper William Sublette, Meek quickly masters the crucial skills of life in the mountains, including trapping, hunting, and surviving battles with fearsome Native American tribes. His greatest challenge arises from a chance encounter with warriors of the Crow tribe, who take him captive while he's scouting for new trapping areas. Using wits and guile to deceive his captors, Meek lures them into a confrontation with the famous mountain man Jim Bridger, who must find a way to rescue Meek without igniting a bloody battle with the formidable Crow.