Apache Chief Nanchez orders the massacre of a US cavalry troop surrounded his warriors. Cavalry reinforcements arrive, and Sgt. Clovis Hook takes Nanchez and most of his men captive, though a few escape. The soldiers then torch the Apache village, rounding up the women and children. A soldier spots a white woman. The woman possessively clutches a small child named Quito. She is Cora Sutcliff, taken captive in a raid some years before while traveling to join her rancher husband, and that she is the mother of Nanchez’s son.