Having transgressed the law of his country, Jim Dawson is tried, convicted and sent to the penitentiary. After a year in the prison, he manages to escape and the intelligence is flashed all over the country. The relentless machinery of the law is set in motion and the man hunt is on. He is discovered by a posse in the mountains. Running and fighting, he escapes their vigilance and securing on of the horses belonging to the posse, again escapes, this time to the house of the woman whom he had married when he still retained the spark of manhood. During his absence a child has been born. The desperate man does not realize that the child is his and that the woman is his wife. Save me is his plea. The woman sets about cleaning his wounds and feeding the famished man. Then the sound of approaching horsemen is heard and kissing the child, but repulsed by the wife, the hunted man leaps through the window and is gone. Up in the mountains he finds a cave and believes himself secure. Down in the valley the wife waits with a nameless dread in her soul. Meanwhile up in the mountain road the minions of the relentless law pick up the fugitive trail.