James Hudson, a young civil engineer, is engaged in surveying land in Southern California, when he meets and falls in love with Pequita, the daughter of Don Jose Alvarado, a Mexican farmer. Pequita learns to love Hudson and they are eventually married. Two years pass and Hudson has become addicted to the use of liquor, and has grown tired of Pequita. One day, while in a drunken rage, he strikes her, and as she falls unconscious, and he, being unable to revive her, believes her dead. He runs from the house, and, after a long journey, falls exhausted at the door of a mission. The padre finds him and takes him inside, where he is nursed back to health and eventually becomes a monk. In the meantime, Pequita has been found by her father and taken to his home, where her little son is born. Twenty years elapse and the son, grown to manhood, has joined the insurgent Mexican army and is selected to do duty as a spy. He enlists in the Federal forces and in the execution of his duties as a spy, he is discovered and tried by court martial. He is condemned to death, but when the commanding officer visits him in his cell, the boy overpowers him and escapes by donning the officer’s cloak and bat. A detachment of soldiers give chase and overtake him at the door of the mission. The padre protects the boy and requests that he be allowed one hour for confession, after which the padre promises to deliver the prisoner to them. The officer consents and the boy is led inside. He requests that his mother be sent for and a monk goes to bring her. When she arrives she immediately recognizes the monk as her husband, and tells him that the boy is his son. At the expiration of the hour the officer demands his prisoner, and the men are waiting outside the mission gate to carry out the execution. As the boy and mother are kneeling in prayer, the father dons the cloak and cap in which the boy escaped and goes out. As he opens the gate and steps forth, be is met by a volley of bullets from the guns of the soldiers, who march away, believing they have done their duty. The mother and son rush from the mission and fall weeping across the body of the father who, with his life, atoned for the suffering he had caused them.