As the Civil War rages, the Hitchcock family heads from Pennsylvania toward the Rocky Mountains, hoping to find gold. They travel through hostile country, where everything is strange and frightening until Eda's sister Belle gets a job, and Eda and her oldest sister, Lucy, meet an unusual family of actors. But when Pa decides they should all return home, a near-tragedy forces them to stay, penniless and freezing, in a tent city in Denver, where an "enemy" teaches Eda an important lesson.