The story tells of the gambler and townsite promoter who founded Cozad, Nebraska, and of his family, particularly his younger son, [who] became a world-famous artist and teacher known as 'Robert Henri.' This tale is essentially Robert's story, the story of a sensitive talented boy growing up in the midst of frontier violence. But it is also the story of the ambitious promoter and of frontier people fighting hunger, cold, blizzards, drouths, grasshoppers,