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This Mississippi River tale was based on the play by Frank Chanfrau. When gambler Manuel Bond (Benjamin Ross) is given charge of pretty Mary Adams (Alice Hollister), he tries to take advantage of the girl. She escapes and finds a group of settlers. One of the is Kit Redding (Jere Austin). It is love at first sight and the pair marry. Six years later, Bond befriends Redding and finds Mary once again. He tells her he will murder Kit unless she runs off with him, so she takes her little girl, Alice (Doris Hollister), and goes with him. Redding gives pursuit and he and Bond duel. Bond shoots Redding and the horrified Mary jumps in the river. She drowns and Bond escapes, carrying Alice with him. Fifteen years pass before Redding and Bond meet again on a steamboat. By now, Alice is a young woman (Marguerite Courtot), and Bond's gambling practices have become more crooked than ever. Alice falls in love with a young planter, James Temple (Arthur Albertson), but Bond takes his money at the gambling table. Redding, who knows that Bond and his men are cheating, sits down and wins the money back. He and Alice finally recognize each other, but Bond interrupts their reunion by stabbing Redding in the back and snatching Alice away. He and his men have already set the steamboat on fire and rifled the safe. Temple forms a posse and rounds up the crooks, but Redding goes after Bond himself. They have a knife fight by the shore and end up fighting underwater. Only one man comes back to the surface -- Redding. He swims ashore to his daughter.