Jim Carson, a young Tennessee mountaineer, and Millie James, a mountain girl, are worried over the condition of Jim’s mother. Millie nurses her tenderly. Jim’s worry is increased by a note which he has received from John Calhoun, a miserly landowner, stating that, unless he pays the overdue rent on the shack which they occupy, that Jim will be evicted. Realizing that terrible shock would be dangerous to his mother, Jim goes out and attempts to borrow the money. He meets with no success. Meanwhile, Calhoun, accompanied by two deputies and his overseer, Ned Simms, goes the rounds of the cabins to collect his rent. He arrives at Jim’s cabin. Jim being absent upon his mission, Millie states that they have not the rent, whereupon Calhoun orders them evicted and the men at his command place the dying woman out on the roadside on a mattress, also throwing their scant furniture into the roadway. The shock of the eviction kills the mother, Calhoun goes on his way. Jim arrives at the cabin and learns of the eviction and the death of his mother. Shortly afterwards he leaves to wreak his vengeance upon Calhoun. The mountaineers carry the dead woman into the cabin and restore the furniture to its original position. Jim Carson, by a short cut, waylays Calhoun, shoots at him and kills his horse. In a desperate struggle between the two men, Calhoun’s revolver is accidentally discharged and Calhoun is killed. The body is discovered and Ned Simms and a posse set out upon the trail of Carson. He is captured, placed on a horse under a tree with a rope about his neck and left there, Simms knowing that at sunset the horse will return to the stable, leaving Carson to hang. Simms returns to the cabin of Carson and finds Millie there and taunts her with Jim’s fate. The mountaineer whose horse Jim borrowed his already arrived on the scene. He hears the argument in the shack, goes to the window and covers Simms with his own rifle. Millie leaves on horseback and rescues Jim. She liberates him and at her request Jim rides towards the North, where Millie promises to join him after burying his mother.