A woman describes her experiences raising an orphaned lion cub intending that it eventually return to the jungle.

When game warden George Adamson (Bill Travers) is forced to kill a lion and lioness, he and his wife Joy (Virginia McKenna) adopt their three cubs. Two are sent off to zoos but the third is kept, a female they name Elsa, to which they have become attached. When Elsa is fully grown, the Adamsons realize she must be taught to survive on her own and eventually set free.