As John Ford left his dying sister and little girl in their stranded emigrant wagon to scout for help, he placed a little girl, the last survivor of the neighboring wagon, by his sister’s side. His sister, separating her watch and fob from the chain, gives it to John to carry. She places the chain about the neck of her own little girl, who later dies. Outlaws ransack the wagon. Pedro, the chief, takes the chain from the neck of the dead child and places it about that of the living one. She becomes his foster daughter. Twelve years later, this child, Anita, a lovely girl, is the accomplice of the outlaw in his thieving career. She meets and loves the now wealthy “Gringo,” John Ford. He is beloved by the aristocratic Senorita Ynez, who discovers his infatuation for the street dancer, Anita. Anita refuses to accept Ford’s love, as she is so far beneath him, but he persists and goes to her hut. Pedro, the outlaw, warned by Ynez, follows and is about to kill the “Gringo.” Anita saves Ford’s life, gets the stiletto, and denouncing Pedro for degrading her to his level, making her unfit for the love of Ford, is about to stab Pedro, when the Angelus bell strikes. She drops the stiletto, draws her crucifix and kisses it. The crucifix is fastened on a chain, which Ford recognizes as the one his dying sister put around her child’s neck. Ford and Anita, in love with each other, now believing they are relatives, part. Pedro, loath to lose Anita as a money-earner, makes an attempt to retain possession of her, but as he is wanted for petty thieving, he hides in the Mission Church. Here, after an attempt to rob the altar, his conscience makes a coward of him. Dying, he confesses of the changing of the neck chains on the children years before, which proves Anita not to be the niece of Ford, but the little girl belonging to the neighboring emigrant wagon, whose life he saved. Free to love and marry, the last scene is laid in the Mission Garden, with Anita and Ford receiving the blessings of the Padre.