Scott Schell is the 24-year old son of super rich and highly respected Dr. Haywood Schell of Boston. Scott's consistently dissolute behavior induces Dr. Shell to remove Scott from his Will. The severance is irreversible unless Scott visits and reports on the Schell mineral holdings in Coonskin County, West Virginia.

Scott begins his journey to Coonskin County with his only remaining possessions: the tuxedo he is wearing and a little over one-hundred dollars in cash.

During his excursion into the backwoods of West Virginia, he encounters various eccentrics, coundrels and heroes. He learns valuable lessons of life from each of these.

Finally, Scott meets and falls in love with Doris Gruver, a great beauty from Philadelphia, who, like himself, has become entrapped in a deadly web of fate. Together, they will trust the mysterious widow Ola, an ex-spy, to engineer their escape from fanatic holdovers from the War Between the States.