In the 1880s, Alta Belle, daughter of a New York merchant, is disappointed in love. Not yet twenty and against her parents' wishes, she accepts a job as a schoolmarm in Black Butte, a small coal mining town in the territory of New Mexico. Traveling there by train and stagecoach, she meets an exciting rancher that may just make her forget about her previous romantic woes, but they arrive in Black Butte late. School...