Thomas McDuffie and his wife, Irene, are a young couple who leave their home in Ireland hoping that life in the United States will be better than the hardships they are facing. Working their way across the Atlantic Ocean they land in New York Harbor. Life there is good, but their longing and dreams of a ranch in the hill country of the new state of Texas sends them on another journey. This couple and their baby daughter, Catherine, have a lot to learn and are helped by friendly Texans. One of them is just a plain cowboy who helps the McDuffies make their dream come true. Just about anything that could happen does happen in the rough times of the Civil War.