Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by an abandoned woman traveler and her young son.

Will Penny, an aging cowpoke, takes a "line-rider" job on a vast cattle ranch requiring him to keep trespassers and squatters moving until they're off the property. Ironically, he discovers that the mountain cabin reserved for the line rider has been appropriated by Catherine Allen and her young son, Horace, whose guide has deserted them en route to Oregon to join Catherine's husband. Too soft-hearted and ashamed to kick mother and child out just as the bitter Rocky Mountains winter sets in, he agrees to share the cabin until the spring thaw. But it isn't just the snow that slowly thaws; lonely man and woman soon forget their considerable dissimilarities and start developing a deep, if awkward and unstated, love for each another. Beyond this, Horace finds in Will the father he's never known, and Will finds in Horace the son he's never known he's wanted. The trio's little refuge is then invaded by Bible-quoting preacher Quint and his murderous family of "rawhiders", who'd earlier nearly killed Will over an imagined insult, forcing Will to defend his own "family".—Alfred Jingle

Without a job the solitary middle-aged cowhand, Will Penny, is hired as a line-rider at a vast ranch to watch over the cattle and drive off trespassers from the land. However, the taciturn cowboy comes across the frontier widow, Catherine Allen, and her son, Horace, who have been abandoned by their guide and have taken refuge in his line shack. Much to their surprise, he takes pity on them and gives them a week to move out. But when Will is left for dead in the unforgiving desert by the wandering rawhider, Preacher Quint, and his boys, he will inevitably start rethinking his lonely life, as kind Catherine takes him in, and a quiet affection begins to bloom. Are those unfamiliar and restless feelings powerful enough to forsake a lifetime of solitude?—Nick Riganas