Following the death of an old prospector, Sara discovers that he has left her half of his "gold" mine, and his feisty, 14-year-old granddaughter. Sara tries to convince her fiercely independent ward to give up her plan to continue working the mine, but finds that it takes much more than a reasonable argument to sway the strong-willed girl.

While Sara is facing an onslaught of discouraging problems with her students, her living arrangements and the School Board, her brother arrives from Philadelphia to make an offer which tempts her to return East with him.

Sara is kidnapped by a backwoods trapper (guest star Victor French) who takes the frightened teacher to his mountain hut for a purpose she had never imagined. Confronted by the rough mountaineer's obvious intelligence, Sara forgets her terror as she learns of his painful past and the reason he has brought her to his wilderness clearing.

Sara is dismayed when one of her favorite students, a bright 13-year-old girl, announces that she is getting married. Shannon Terhune guest stars as Jenny Willis, who is about to escape the responsibilities of her motherless home by marrying a young cowboy (Tom Skerritt), despite Sara's warnings of the hazards of early marriage and motherhood.

After three years spent in an asylum because her husband declared her insane, Lily Henchard (guest star Melinda Dillon) returns to be reunited with her daughter, only to find that her own child is afraid of her.

Sara continues its pleasant, non-violent ways. A wealthy Easterner (Sam Groom), seeking to buy property, comes to town and is immediately attracted to Sara (Brenda Vaccaro). Through his courtship, Sara later learns of an agreement to leave her alone, and the revenge she seeks is delicious.

When Angelo Lusco, an expert in the field of dynamite comes to town to blast open a new vein of a silver mine, he threatens to sweep Sara off her feet as well. Henry Darrow plays the colorful, romantic, opera-singing Italian who at first flirts with Sara, and then falls deeply in love with her. Reciprocating his feelings, she becomes personally involved and deeply affected by the dangerous nature of his work.

When a young man, indentured to his harsh uncle, steals a horse to run away, Sara stands alone to save him from the gallows, under the code of the West.

When Sara tries to attract two farm boys to her school, she finds herself becoming worried about their mother, a troubled woman of obvious breeding who left a cultured life in the East to raise a family on the frontier far from other people. lnga Swenson guest stars as Henrietta Lindquist, who is wasting away from years of desolation in an earthen house far from town, until Sara lures her into Independence to hear music for the first time in years.

An epidemic hits the town of Independence while the town's doctor is absent. Kathleen – the daughter of a bibulous former doctor whose drinking is ruining his relationship with his daughter – is Sara's best student and the only person in town with any medical knowledge, so she apprehensively tends to the sick with Sara's reassurance.

Sara needs all her tact and understanding to help a bright, but introverted, student from the East adjust to his new surroundings, but his father's talent for making enemies threatens to make the task impossible.

Sara faces a crisis of conscience when the people of the town vent their pent-up rage over years of conflict with the Indians on a 10-year-old, half-Indian girl who wants to attend Sara's school.