Mary Ainslie has been waiting 30 years for her fiancé, a sea captain, to return. She has kept a light burning in her window to guide him home. His son Carl, by another woman, arrives on vacation in the New England village where Mary lives. Mary is overcome by the resemblance between the young man and his father. The young man falls in love with Ruth, Mary's young comrade. On her deathbed, Mary wishes Carl and Ruth the romantic life that she did not live.

Brave and good-natured cowboy Sandy Burke saves young Dolly after her father is killed in the saloon. He entrusts the girl to kindly Widow Mackey, who is having trouble paying her mortgage and decides he is responsible for the pair so he best start earning some money. Soon he is seeking work at the U-Bar-U ranch but who could predict the trouble he will have with the rancher's daughter, Molly, or the surly foreman, Jim Diggs!