A spoiled and willful young heiress, cocooned from reality by bodyguards and her father's trillions, jumps ship off the Florida coast when her father wishes to have her recent unconsummated marriage to a gold-digging roue annulled. Her worried father hires detectives to comb the land for his runaway daughter, offers a hefty reward for news of her, and has headlines blazon her disappearance while she sets off to reach New York by cross-country bus—her first foray into the real world of ordinary people. She runs into difficulties and a broke, straight-talking journalist who has just been fired. He recognizes her, spots a scoop, and escorts her through a series of adventures to the obligatory climax of temporary misunderstandings and true love.

Such are the bones of Night Bus, a short story by Samuel Hopkins Adams that, retitled It Happened One Night...