Corning marries her mail-order husband, Jason Matthis. Three ranches converge at Campbell's Corner in the distant prairie Frontier outside Sidney, Montana. The Corning Ranch, the Campbell Ranch, and the Dempsey Ranch share a common fence corner and a water pump. The three ranch wives meet at the pump to share their cares and concerns. When, through varied circumstances, each one finds herself widowed, they meet again to console and support each other.

Katie Corning still can't stop crying from the loss of her husband to influenza last winter. She doesn't know how she'll keep the ranch going without him. So she listens eagerly when her neighbor and friend, Hannah Dempsey, shows her a newspaper advertisement for the mail-order matrimony service. Hannah convinces Katie and their other young neighbor, Josie Campbell, to get mail-order.

The three men they get as husbands couldn't be more different. Katie's husband, Jason, is young, easy-going, and gentle, while Josie's husband, Jim Eaton, is brooding and volatile. Hannah's husband, Peter Cummings, is older, educated, and carrying a secret that will put his new marriage to the test. The three friends strike out on three different courses that sometimes converge and even conflict with each other. Marriage to these men challenges everything they knew about themselves and marriage, and brings each one to a different conclusion and, ultimately, a different destiny.