Scot Robinson arrives in Snow Shoe in the spring of 1880 in search of his uncle who is supposed to care for him until he can join his pa, a government surveyor, working somewhere in the west. His mother is back east in a hospital, chronically sick, so it's up to Uncle Hank Fillmore to care for the boy until his pa is settled in his next assignment. But Uncle Hank has no idea the boy is coming. Unbeknownst to Scot, he's too busy robbing trains. The boy has no one to turn to until Jay Miller, the engineer on locomotive Number twenty-one, the "R L King" steps in to help him find his uncle. Stranded in Snow Shoe is the story of a friendship and a search to reconnect a boy to his family.