Uprooted from their comfortable home in Pennsylvania, James and Kate Tanner, along with their sons Virgil and Andy (played by real-life brothers Ron and Clint Howard) journey to the wild country of 1890's Wyoming to become farmers. Soon, they come face to face with tornadoes, bears, and wolves. But through the hardships their love for each other endures, even when a local rancher sees the newcomers as "squatters" on his land, and will stop at nothing -- including murder -- to drive them out.