A kindly but firm priest mentors a troubled young boy at the famous Boys Town, a residential care community for troubled youth.
Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.
Two couples betray the decadence which lurks beneath the surface of high society: Steve, wealthy but ignorant, is engaged in a kinky relationship with Helen, a posh socialite living in Belgravia; meanwhile, Steve's nouveau riche wife Sybil is having an affair with Les, a private eye hired to kill her husband.
During the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, an assorted group of refugees, including an American soldier, an Army nurse, a priest and a group of local children, try to make their getaway aboard a rattletrap, creaky bus.
