For many years Prudence has exchanged letters with her cousin Patricia, and following her seventeenth birthday, Pru's father allows her to travel half way around the world to spend the summer on his younger brother's ranch. So Pru leaves Brisbane, Australia, and makes the long trip to Oklahoma Territory, suitably supervised as is proper for a young unmarried woman in Victorian society.

Her journey over, Pru settles down to life on a ranch, and becomes firm friends with Patricia. But things are very different out west, and although Uncle John and Aunt Jenny are warm and welcoming, theirs is a household in which bad behaviour is corrected by a spanking. Pru and Patricia deliberately disobey Patricia's father, and end up in the creek with two cowboys, Josh and Jed Miller, whose father owns the adjoining ranch. This escapade earns Patricia a trip to the woodshed where she receives the strap from her father. Feeling guilty for her part in the incident, Pru volunteers herself for the same treatment ... and thus begins Pru's experience with corporal punishment. Though the pain is fierce, she revels in the sensations.

A few weeks later, out riding alone, Pru again disobeys and trespasses onto the Miller property where she bathes in a water hole. This time she is spotted by the handsome Josh Miller, who saves her life by shooting a wolf about to attack her. He then gives her a spanking for putting herself at risk, and finishes up by asking her to the dance...