For Jack Hale the Cumberland country on the borders of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee meant the way to great riches. As the advance man for British Mining interests, Hale was in the Kentucky hills to buy coal mining rights from the mountain folk. Hale's chance meeting with a young mountain girl has a dramatic impact upon both their lives, sending each of them onto opposite paths before they converge again much later. In a land of feuds and shifting loyalties Hale frequently finds himself an outsider, frequently under suspicion by the mountain folk and caught in the middle, as he attempts to secure his future.