An adult Billy rescues a stray redbone hound from a pack of neighborhood dogs and, while caring for it, is flooded with memories of his own two hunting dogs from childhood.

Billy, age ten, longs desperately for two coonhound puppies he cannot afford. He prays for them. He finds a hunting magazine with an advertisement and hatches his plan.

Billy spends two years secretly saving money — selling berries, vegetables, and fishing minnows — until he reaches $50. He writes away for the dogs.

Billy walks alone through the mountains to pick up his puppies in Tahlequah. He spends a night in a river camp, arrives at the marshal's office, and collects his dogs.

Billy walks home with the puppies through the night. Little Ann falls into a flooded river hole. Billy rescues her with a grapevine. He arrives home and reveals the dogs to his stunned family.

Billy names the dogs Old Dan and Little Ann from carvings he finds on a tree in the woods. He begins training them. Their distinct personalities — Old Dan's courage, Little Ann's intelligence — emerge.

Old Dan and Little Ann tree their first raccoon in a giant hollow sycamore. Billy promises the dogs he will get the coon out. He chops for days to fulfill that promise.

The Pritchard brothers challenge Billy to hunt the legendary ghost coon. Old Dan and Little Ann tree it. Billy refuses to kill the coon — and in the confrontation that follows, Rubin Pritchard falls on his own hatchet and dies.

Billy's grandfather enters him in the annual Cherokee coon hunt championship. Billy and the dogs travel to the hunting camp and meet experienced competitors from across the region.

A blizzard hits during the final championship hunt. Camp organizers call the hunt. Billy refuses to quit. Old Dan and Little Ann continue hunting through the storm, building the highest score.

Billy wins the championship gold cup — the youngest winner in the competition's history. The prize money is enough for his father to move the family to town so the children can attend school.

The family prepares to move. Billy hunts with Old Dan and Little Ann knowing each outing may be their last in the Cherokee hills. The Ozark nights take on an elegiac quality.

On a final hunt, a mountain lion attacks Billy. Old Dan throws himself between Billy and the lion. The dogs fight and kill it together — but Old Dan is mortally wounded.

Old Dan's wounds are too severe. He dies after a day of Billy's desperate tending. Billy buries him on a hill overlooking the valley they hunted together.

Little Ann stops eating and visits Old Dan's grave each day, growing weaker. She dies at his gravesite and is buried beside him.

Before the family's departure, Billy visits the graves one last time. A red fern has grown between the two mounds — a plant Cherokee legend says only an angel can plant. The family leaves the Ozarks.

The novel returns to its opening frame. Adult Billy, having held the entire memory, watches the stray hound leave his yard and remains at the gate. The story is complete.

An examination of Billy's ethical character — his mercy toward the ghost coon, his grief for Rubin Pritchard, and what these choices reveal about the moral code formed by growing up in the Cherokee hills.

An examination of Grandpa's role throughout the novel — his quiet wisdom, his enabling presence at every key transition, and what he represents about how elders love children who are ready for more.

A synthesis of the novel's central argument: what it means to love something you cannot keep, what that love costs, and what the red fern says about what remains when the beloved is gone.