An American Civil War veteran returns home after a season of frontline violence. Shortly after his arrival, a massacre of settlers takes place, and he then sets out on an obsessive quest to rescue a young girl who has been kidnapped by the Native Americans. Zacharias Kunuk says that John Wayne was a childhood idol, but over time looked upon him differently, because “there are always two sides to the same story”. In this case, John Ford focused the story on the side of the settlers, but inlaying details of their relationship with the Other.