Kathleen Duey

Orphaned nine-year-old Katie Rose is sent to live with the Stevenses, and her backbreaking toil is eased by the relationship she develops with a mustang Mr. Stevens brings home.

In 1851 in Louisiana, Paul is abandoned in the bayous by his older brothers and it is up to his lame Cajun friend Lily to find him.

In the Colorado Territory in 1875, orphan Margret and her older sister Libby are staying with the kind-hearted Mrs. Fredrickson when Margret finds an injured horse which she nurses back to health and wants to keep, while Libby is too mistrustful of people to think that they might possibly have found a home.