Madeline Jekyll meets Baron Stana, a distinguished looking man, and finds her father has promised her in marriage to Daggerts, a politician, who, in reward, has agreed to see that Jekyll is elected governor. Madeline is already in love with Robert Mayhew, and rebels at the prearranged marriage.

LeGrande, an old trapper, refuses to vacate his favorite hunting grounds when ordered to do so by Sampson and other settlers, and his life is only saved through the intervention of his daughter, Joan. The rascals soon learn to fear the girl's keen wit and daring, and Sampson, already pledged to marry Sanchezza, a Mexican girl, falls in love with Joan.

The influence of Musa, a wildly beautiful dumb girl, upon every citizen of Gallows Gulch, a rough western mining town, is almost uncanny. They fear, yet hate her, and claim she has "the evil eye."