It is based on Street's short story "Weep No More, My Lady", which was published in the 6 December 1941 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.

Skeeter is a 14-year-old orphan who lives with his uncle Jesse in a one-room shack in the swamps of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi.

When they do, they see it is a small animal with short red and white fur that makes a chuckling yodel sound and cleans itself like a cat.

However, Lady's behavior makes it clear that she is someone else's dog, and Skeeter fears that Evans will discover who her real owner is.

Skeeter is horrified when Lady chases and kills a water rat, something no true bird dog will stoop to.

Evans had planned to give his new dog to Jesse and Skeeter to train (for which he intended to pay them three dollars a week), but seeing Lady with her rat causes him to change his mind.

A visiting Evans sees Lady pointing at a clump of sage fifty yards away and refuses to believe she has detected birds from so far away.

In time, Evans hears from a traveling salesman out of Mobile, Alabama that a kennel in Connecticut lost a Basenji near Pascagoula.

When Lady responds to the name Isis, Skeeter knows he has the lost Basenji, and decides to return her to her rightful owner.

With the $100 reward Grover gave him, the boy buys his toothless uncle a set of false teeth, and puts a down payment on a 20 gauge shotgun for himself.

After Street's death, Warner Bros. pictures began production of a film version of the novel, starring Brandon deWilde as Skeeter, Walter Brennan as Uncle Jesse, Phil Harris as Cash Evans, and Sidney Poitier as Gates Watson.

The film was produced by John Wayne's Batjac Productions, directed by William A. Wellman, and the screenplay was written by Albert Sidney Fleishman.