The novel begins in 1961 when a middle-aged man by the name of Billy Colman rescues a redbone hound from neighborhood dogs and takes it home to recover. The incident reminds him of the faithful dogs he owned as a child in the Ozarks.

The story then travels decades prior to a ten-year-old Billy seeking a pair of redbone hounds for coon hunting. After seeing a magazine ad for coon hounds, he spends the next two years working odd jobs to earn the $50 he needs to buy a pair of pups and walks 20 miles to Tahlequah to retrieve them. As he returns with the dogs, he sees the names "Dan + Ann" carved on a tree and names the pups Old Dan and Little Ann. With his grandfather's help, he trains them to hunt.