The year is 1906.
"When U. S. Army Colonel Vito Latissimo and his unit disappear on an discovery expedition in Afghanistan, President Theodore Roosevelt suspects an international, criminal conspiracy. He asks his former Rough Rider Lieutenant, Gunther to act as his free-lance agent and accompany the follow-up British and American mission to locate this officer. Along for the investigation are Latissimo's ill, angry and deserted wife, her beautiful caretaker niece, an aged cavalry company, geographic society's photographers, a reckless English Commander, his British Lancers and a division of Indian Sepoy soldiers. After the assassination of the U.S. contingent's leader, Gunther reluctantly ends up in charge of the American unit. They find Latissimo alive, well and scheming, and Gunther uncovers a plot to assist Russia in the Great Game of disrupting Britain in both India and Afghanistan, plus a traitor's mad scheme to become king of the far Khyber Pass."