The High Divide qualifies as a western, given its setting in the Minnesota, Dakota and Montana territories in 1886. The story begins in Minnesota, when Ulysses Pope leaves his house to work on a nearby carpentry job and fails to return. He and his wife, Gretta, had quarreled over his use of their home as security for a bank loan, and the disagreement had hung like a shroud over them for weeks. Gretta, a native of Denmark who had settled in the United States before meeting and marrying Ulysses, is certain that the man to whom she has been married for almost 20 years has abandoned her, particularly when his absence stretches into weeks with hardly a word from him as to his activities or whereabouts. Worse, she is unable to make loan payments and is being pressured by the noteholder to make up the arrearage in trade, as it were.