George Alden Morgan in "Gunnison Butte" never knew his father and is abandoned at fourteen by his mother who runs off one morning, leaving George eleven silver dollars. Now on his own, George steals a fine horse and a gun and leaves town. Later he realizes he is being followed. But his pursuer is stopped and sent packing by another man, hiding in the shadows. That man is Boone Helm. Because Boone knows how to survive in the wilderness, George accepts Boone's offer to side him. What happens to George afterwards is something he could never have imagined.