The Jordans, Phil and Ruth, accompanied by Philip's wife, Polly, and Dr. Winthrop Newbury, a suitor for Ruth's hand, bid old Mrs. Jordan good-bye at the station of Milford Corners, Mass., and depart for the West, to work over some unredeemed desert land, which was left to the Jordans by their dead father. Arriving in the west, they take up their work, but it proves anything but a success. On the brink of the Great Divide lives Stephen Ghent, an untamed and uncouth man of the West, and on account of his manner is respected by the habitués of Miller's saloon and dance hall in the town, which he and two of his acquaintances in the persons of Pedro, a half-breed Mexican, and Dutch, a brutal type of the West, frequent.

This Ogre was not he of the fairy tales, but a kindly wealthy man of forbidding face to whom those who did not know him gave the name. Tiring of loneliness he decided to marry, and wooed the Girl who lived at the foot of the hill. On account of his great wealth the Girl's parents encouraged his suit, but she shrank from him

A royal princess gives her time to the Red Cross, and works alongside a young American doctor.