Dr. Matthews, professor of philosophy in a small New England college, is dismissed, and though heart-broken he and his daughter, Prudence, start in a prairie schooner for the West. At St. Jo, which in 1850 was the outfitting point for the great west, they meet Calliope, so named because of the vast carrying quality of his lungs. He accompanies them on their journey. On the way west, it falls to Calliope's lot to do them many little services, which, on account of the native modesty of Pru and the innate manhood of Calliope, are necessarily surreptitious. They lose one horse and Calliope saves the other from the hands of a thievish outlaw, compelling the latter to give up his own for the use of the immigrants. Later Dr. Matthews, spent with the exactions of a trip for which nature never intended him, dies, and is buried by Pru, alone in the wastes of the desert. In her great loneliness she feels the protecting presence of Calliope, who is always a little behind, yet ever in sight, and at length, in a moment of dread, when she seems but a little speck in vast expanse of the world, a note reaches her by way of a limb stretched across the trail, offering her the heart and hand and home of Calliope. The love situations are purely psychological, as the characters barely meet face to face, yet a love interest pervades the entire story, culminating in the complete surrender of Pru, to the happiness of Calliope. - Moving Picture World, August 12, 1916