Jack O’Brien comes to the mining town of El Dorado with nothing but his pluck and his music. Biddy Malone was the first to hear his singing, and it won a place for the lad in her heart and a job at her woodpile to pay for his board, while Mary, who lived with Biddy, looked and listened, and learned to love the big singer. Hardpan Henry, who owned the Lucky Strike claim, and who was really Mary’s father, also hears the troubadour’s song, took a fancy to the lad and showed him the sights of El Dorado. In a saloon brawl, which followed an insult, cast by Diamond Dave, a gambler, upon the name of Mary, Jack fought with Dave and Hardpan, by shooting up the lights, saved the lad and took him to his own cabin on the Lucky Strike claim. Time passed, and Jack became Hardpan’s partner. This did not please Dave, who wanted the mine and who also desired the girl, Mary. Dave did not know that Hardpan was Mary’s father, but one night Jack found the old man with the pictures of Mary and her mother, and Hardpan confessed that he had quarreled with his wife and she had left him. Following the first clean-up at the mine, Jack O’Brien carried his share of gold to Mary, and there asked her to be his wife. But Dave had caused the girl to believe that the gold did not belong to Jack, and she repulsed him. Jack went to the Last Chance saloon and to Vera Lou, a dance hall girl, who loved him. Realizing her mistake, Mary wrote to Jack, begging him to return, but the message fell into the hands of Dave, who ordered Vera Lou to take Jack to her own home and keep him there until morning. Dave then sent his tool, Rattlesnake Pete, to the Lucky Strike, and while jack lay in a stupor at Vera’s home Hardpan was shot. At dawn Dave led the sheriff’s posse to the cabin and then to Vera. “Jack O’Brien came at dawn and begged me to hide him,” said the woman. Then, her better nature aroused by Jack’s plight, she aided him in his escape from the sheriff, holding the posse back while Jack galloped on horseback to Mary’s house. He commanded her to come with him, and the girl obeyed. When they reached the cabin, Hardpan, though very weak, was still alive, and Mary learned for the first time that he was her father. Realizing his danger, Jack sought a hiding place in a deserted hole. Here he found Rattlesnake Pete. The murderer, escaping the scene of his crime, had fallen into the hole and had broken his arm. After a struggle, Jack dragged Pete before the sheriff, and the man confessed to the murder. Dave was accused as the real instigator. The gambler and his tool were arrested. Before Hardpan died he said to Jack: “I leave you my little girl.”