On visits to the sandy Outer Banks islands off the coast of North Carolina, a sixteenth-century Paspatank girl named Gray Squirrel befriends a wild pony, and together they fulfill their destiny of helping the English colonists on Roanoke Island.

In 1774, a fourteen-year-old Quakeress makes a daring all-night ride to warn General Skinner that Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, is headed toward the Outer Banks--threatening her home and beloved ponies.