The Cecil family--which includes Mary Margaret, her sister Rosie, her brother-in-law Seth, her three teenaged children and a baby, and Granpa Crackenthorpe--travels from Boone`s Lick, in Missouri, to a fort in Wyoming, where they hope to find Dick, Mary Margaret`s husband. When they finally arrive, and Dick is located, Mary Margaret tells him she`s throwing him over for his brother Seth. Coincidentally, the famous Fetterman Massacre occurs the next day, in which 80 American soldiers were slaughtered in an Indian ambush.