Cheney Duvall proved to be an excellent doctor to those two hundred brides with whom she travelled to the West by sea. But a string of medical successes during the voyage does not open any doors for her upon her arrival to Seattle. In this frontier town, she's just a woman. Dejected she returns to Philadelphia. When she recieves a letter with an invitation to a remote spot in the Ozar Mountains where there are no doctors at all. Cheney feels compelled to go. But the local people are less than welcoming. Cheney runs into walls of illiteracy, supersition, and immovable distructs of Yankees-especially an "edjicated female [who] thinks she's a real doc."