How can a traveling cowboy leave a woman alone with her newborn baby and little boy at Christmas? Caught in a snowstorm on his way through Dakota territory, Jeremiah Jensen can't ignore a dog demanding he follow to a meager camp where a man lay dying. With his last breath he pleads with the cowboy to take care of his family. After Jeremiah cares for the body, the dog leads him to a sod house where a little boy and a woman with a bundled baby welcome him. Over his first hot meal since Fargo, he breaks the news about her husband and says when the storm passes he will go and help bring the body home. Belle Stedman agrees for Jeremiah to stable his horse in the barn and sleep in the lean-to himself. Though grieving for her husband, she is grateful to know what happened and comforted by the memory of the mysterious man who appeared to help when her baby was born and told her to name the baby Angel. And now God has sent a human man to give the help they desperately need. But what will the neighbors and pastor think of Jeremiah? Is propriety more important than staying alive? And what is a cowboy to do when he was contracted to manage a cattle ranch farther north, yet now he is far more needed here.