Tom Weston, an Easterner, has married in secret a Western girl while he is stopping on a ranch in the west. He does not want to have his father know of the step he has taken for fear of being disinherited and lives apart from his wife. Irene writes him that the woman who is taking care of their baby refuses to do so any longer and that she feels that the marriage should he publicly announced. Tom writes his wife, forbidding her to reveal the marriage and asks her to meet him that night. In the meanwhile, he secretly enters the house of the minister who married them and tears from the record of marriages the sheet which register's his own. It so happens that during the day a dead Indian brave has been cremated according to tribal custom at the very spot where Tom is to meet his wife. Tom plans to return east and shirk his responsibility as husband and father. The couple meet and in the presence of his wife Tom destroys the evidence of the marriage and leaves her, as he thinks, for good. The deserted woman with her baby is befriended by a band of gypsies, who take her in. The torn marriage record and Tom's letter is found by chance near the scattered bones of the Indian's cremation and the community believes that Tom has murdered Irene, who is missing. He is arrested at the station and thrown into jail. Irene hears of his arrest and rides to the jail in time to prevent a lynching. Shamed into repentance Tom writes his father, tells of his marriage and determines to make his own way.
—Moving Picture World synopsis