Mae Murray plays the title character, who, while a maiden, does not start off as a Mormon. It is the mid-nineteenth century, and Dora (Murray), is living with her mother (Edythe Chapman) and father (Hobart Bosworth) by the road where Mormon caravans pass on their way to the promised land in Utah. A couple of Mormon men on one caravan, Tom Rigdon and Darius Burr (Frank Borsage and Noah Beery, respectively), take an interest in Dora. When Indians burn down the girl's home, she and her parents are rescued by the Mormons and become part of their colony. Although Dora is engaged to Rigdon, Burr intends to force her into joining his own stable of wives. This he almost manages to do, until Dora halts the ceremony by claiming to be impure and thus unable to marry a Mormon. Some people of the day found the polygamous subject matter of this film distasteful. Those who got past that found appeal in the strength of its drama.