The story commences when a young woman, Marie Joliette LaVigne, who had been traveling on the overland trail, is forced to remain at Fort Laramie in Nebraska Territory in the mid-1850s. From a wealthy old French family living near St. Louis, she is educated and planning to marry when her fiance is unfaithful. She is heartbroken. Her family decides that she should leave home and arranges for her to travel with a family to join a sister in the Oregon Territory. Cholera and death wipe out most of that family, and she, unable to drive the wagon or find a way to continue on the trail, is left at the fort--an Army post--with two young children. Because of her education, she is offered a teaching position with quarters in a vacant barracks. The children remain with her, and she establishes a new, completely unplanned life for herself and the children.