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Madge Nelson (Pauline Frederick) has just emerged from the hospital, and she's still to sick to work. Her landlady suggests that the girl answer a matrimonial ad in the paper; that way her financial problems will be solved. So Madge does, and eventually she pawns her mother's jewels to travel from her home in the Midwest to the Nevada town where Hugo Ennis (Thomas Holding) lives. What she doesn't know is that Hugo did not place the ad, nor did he answer her letters -- it was all the doing of the town's vindictive postmistress, who has it in for Hugo, a confirmed woman-hater. So Madge arrives at Hugo's empty cabin, and when he returns from his hunting trip to find her there, he harangues her and calls her a blackmailer. His tirade frightens her and she shoots him. But she's even more frightened by what she's done and quickly finds a doctor. Luckily, Hugo's wound is not serious and he quickly (too quickly, in fact, to be truly plausible) warms up to Madge. Nevertheless, the townspeople, spurred on by the postmistress, are determined to run Madge, "the hussy," out of town. But Hugo puts a halt to this, as he wants Madge to stay.