A young woman named Mary Maticka, desperate to escape her family’s meat-packing business, travels out to rural Nebraska to become a schoolteacher there. Upon her arrival in town, she is fascinated by the beautiful rolling hills and dunes of the plains, but the townspeople themselves are skeptical of her strange appearance with her short hair and orange skirts. She goes to board with the Lange family, where she shares a room with their daughter Judy and spends time with their mother, Mrs. Lange. Many nights, Mary ventures out onto the forbidding Hog-Back Ridge, where Mrs. Lange watches as she walks there rain or shine, night or day. Sometimes another young man, John Bridley, joins her on her walks on the ridge. Their relationship quickly ends, though, when Mary realizes that John will never have the same love and appreciation for nature as she does. People in town begin to gossip about Mary’s strange connection with the ridge, and Mr. Lange even decides he wants her gone because her behavior is influencing his wife not to work as hard at her duties. When he finally leaves her a note asking her to board somewhere else, Mary goes and asks Mrs. Lange what she thinks. The older woman assures her that she’s not going anywhere, and even admits that last night, she had wanted to escape her controlling, abusive husband, and so she too walked on Hog-Back Ridge.