Dr. Charles Matthews, professor of philosophy in a small New England college, is dismissed, and though heartbroken 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.