Calhoun's acquisition of a right-of-way for the railroad is threatened when he takes the side of allowing a band of Indians---mostly old people, women, and children---to go through it on their way back from the reservation to their ancestral home. The townsmen who agreed to the right-of-way do not want them to cross it, and insist that Calhoun keep them only on the narrow strip he owns or forfeit it, and hence lose the railroad.