Ben Cameron, a young Southerner from Virginia, goes to California in the early fifties to take up government land. As he enters the little city of San Juan he finds upon the road a starving Spanish peon, Ozozco. Moved by his physical condition, Cameron takes the boy to his home, passing the Mission in the town of San Juan, where a Padre of the Mission is talking to Ines, the rose of her fair California. Love at first sight dominates, and at the fandango that night, Cameron again meets the beautiful Ines, proving her champion when an insulting drunken Spaniard attempts to trespass upon the freedom of the girl Ines. Land grabbers everywhere cause great distress to the Spaniards, who kill at sight all gringos thieving or taking their lands unlawfully. To avenge himself, the drunken Spaniard causes a raid upon the privacy of Cameron, who is in the act of questioning a number of land grabbers, who are about to make a wholesome raid upon the little village of San Juan. Cameron, captured by the order of the commandant, is doomed to be shot when Ozozco, proving a friend in need, crawls to the stacked muskets and replaces the good cartridges with blanks. Cameron, when shot, falls as if dead and so escapes by the aid of the faithful Ozozco and his sweetheart. Standing on the mountain peak, Cameron holding his sweetheart, now his wife, in his arms, looks over the state they are now leaving for a new world beyond.