Portrait of a young Crow Indian boy - Clarence Three Irons, Jr., a.k.a. Indian - living in Lodge Grass, Montana. Indian's father raises cattle and horses, and manages the Crow buffalo herd. The buffalo has always been a critical element in Crow culture and the herd's return from near- extinction is an important link for the Crow with their past. The ways in which the Crow have preserved and extended their cultural heritage is Hoyt-Goldsmith's focus, including the annual round-up reflecting the grand buffalo days - the fair and rodeo offering a chance to build and camp in tipis, don ceremonial garb, and attend to sacred dances.

Robbins briefly traces the history of the American buffalo from 1875, when there were perhaps 50 million of them, to the present, in which laws protect the surviving 200,000. "This is the story of a great shaggy creature, a very American beast, one found here and nowhere else," he begins. Robbins supplements the text with dramatic images, including his own photographs of present-day buffalo grazing in Oklahoma.