Western prospectors Jeff and Cash find a baby boy in an otherwise deserted emigrants' camp, and clash over which is to be "father." They are still bitterly feuding years later when they own adjacent ranches. Bill, the foundling whom Cash has raised to young manhood, wants to end the feud and extends an olive branch toward Jeff, who now has a lovely daughter. But during a mining venture, the bitterness escalates.

A young girl is destined to liberate her world from the grip of the Magisterium, which represses people's ties to magic and their animal spirits known as daemons. Based on author Philip Pullman's beloved trilogy.