A young soldier shields his brother’s honor by assuming the guilt of a forgery. He is deprived of his rank and drummed out of the service of the army. Shunned by his family and his friends, he leaves his mother and his sweetheart and goes West. On a ranch in New Mexico, he succeeds in losing his identity. One day he discovers an Indian maiden lying prone, near a clump of prairie brush, while the pony which threw her is grazing nearby. The ex-soldier lifts the girl to the horse and takes her back to her people. The girl is the daughter of the Chief of the tribe and he desirous of having her marry a dried up old medicine man, and in order to force an issue to his wish, he places her under guard. The ex-soldier overpowers the guard and rescues the girl. They are married and after a year a baby is born. Six years pass, six years of joy for the squaw and the man, and then comes a message from the East. The perfidity (sic) of the brother has been discovered and the mother and sweetheart are coming West to recover their lost boy and to make amends. The squaw and the child awaken him to his duty in the West and it is with foreboding that he receives his mother and the Eastern girl. The mother offers to take the child back East to educate him and the ex-soldier consents without consulting his squaw wife. The shock of losing her baby is too great for the Indian girl and feeling that she is a barrier between the white man and his happiness, she kills herself. The man finds her lying as he first saw her, and gathering her in his arms, he croons over her with his heart broken.