Story is about a 14 year boy, living in the valley of the Colorado River, whose mother wants to send him away to school, and his father wants him to stay home and work on the ranch.   This area of the Colorado River is known for 'Crazy Weather' where it can be 110 degrees at 7 in the morning.  This can make your mind 'crazy', and that is the way the young man looked at both prospects, so he decides to run away with his Mojave friend & make war on the Piutes & win for himself a 'man's' name.  During 4 tense days of maddening heat, the boy travels the length of the Fort Mojave Reservation encountering every phase of life among people who had once made themselves feared from the Rio Grande to the Pacific.  later he saves his friend in the storm and brings an end to the 'crazy weather' and leaves him an Indian boy no longer, but a white man.