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.

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.