Describes the actions of both whites and Comanches during a 40-year war over territory, in a story that begins with the kidnapping of a white girl, who grew up to marry a Comanche chief and have a son, Quanah, who became a great warrior.

Discusses the power wielded by the Comanches in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the southern Great Plains, the Southwest, and northern Mexico, covering their military ability, political dominance, and commercial and cultural influence as they resisted European colonization until their defeat in 1875.