There is one set of tracks leading to and from the snowbound cabin of Eugene Pettijohn, dead of a gunshot wound.These tracks were made by Herb Shultz, the unpopular deadbeat neighbour who discovered the body. Shultz is arrested but Dr. Erica Merrill, a young veterinarian trying to establish a practice in her hometown, doesn't think Shultz committed the murder. Her boyfriend, deputy sheriff Clay Caldwell, is skeptical; her powerful father interfering; and citizens of the small Northern Idaho county seat, antagonistic. Her fledgling veterinary practice threatened, Dr. Merrill decides that she must solve the mystery herself and win acceptance as a person in her own right.