Book excerpt: Guthrie, Oklahoma, 1912. Priscilla Cochran intends to prove to the world she is a grown up woman, able to take care of herself. She accepts a job as a teacher in Dogtown, Colorado where the man who hired her thinks she is a woman of ‘mature years.’ Mitch Beaumont is tired of young women who come to Dogtown and leave in tears because it is not a built up city with entertainment a young woman would want. He has finally secured a teacher for the town who has assured him she is a middle aged spinster, and will be able to last through the hard winters. Then twenty year old Priscilla steps off the mail coach and falls at his feet in the mud.