Jess Croft lives with sister Bessie and old Silas, a farmer raising ostriches on the great Transvaal veldt. Jess is a reserved and aloof, with a quietness about her brought on by the misfortunes of her young childhood, when she and Bessie arrived motherless from England to South Africa. Then an Englishman, Captain John Niel, arrives to try his hand at the farming life.