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Feud between ranchers and lumberjacks over the issue of environment protection versus profits.

The titular town of Eager is to undergo an enormous change, this allegorically poetic fantastical tale shows the town's response to this impending change. Despite character's views, all are going to be directly affected come morning.

During the California gold rush, the all-male mining camp of Spanish Bar, on the Sundown Trail, delegates "Oily" Jones to go East to bring women for them to marry. A young widow arrives with the brides and searches for Velvet Eddy. After "Quiet" Carter, who remains a bachelor, rescues her from Eddy's attack, she learns the attacker's identity and insists on finding him. Lost in a storm, she arrives exhausted at a Mexican dancer's cabin. Because the vigilance committee intends to run her out of town, the dancer exchanges clothes with the widow, who has lost her memory. After Eddy loses a knife duel with Carter, he requests, before he dies, that Carter care for his child. Carter rescues the widow from the vigilantes, and marries her to protect her. After an Easterner claims that she is his wife, Carter learns that he lied to get her property. When he retrieves her, she recognizes the child, which Eddy was holding for ransom, as her own, as her memory returns.

Huell travels to a region in Sierra and Plumas Counties known as the Lost Sierra. In Downieville he meets the staff of The Mountain Messenger, the state's oldest weekly newspaper. Near Johnsville he learns some Gold Rush skiing history.