When John's pa has his leg crushed riding timber down the tumbling streams to the mill, the granny woman can't help. If he loses his leg, the entire family will suffer because he won't be able to work. Luckily it's eastern Kentucky in the early years of this century, and Mary Breckinridge has arrived on horseback to help. When a mountain man's wife dies, he takes his twin babies and young daughter Pearl, who has stopped talking, down the mountain to the care facility that Mary Breckinridge established to provide medical services for people in 700 square-miles of wilderness. When a young nurse from Scotland seeks adventure and a chance to use her nursing skills, she applies for a job with Mary and spends most of the rest of her life on horseback, following the mountain trails to provide vaccines, medicines, and care in the Frontier Nursing Service.
