In search of information about her grandfather, gold prospector Jim Vale, Miriam Vale comes to California and teaches school to defray her expenses. She learns that years ago Vale was robbed and killed by road agents and that suspicion fell upon Henry Stanley, although nothing could be proved. Uncovering no other information, Miriam is about to return to Vermont when she is accosted by a strange man who orders her to accompany him to his cabin where a woman lays injured. Miriam finds the dying woman and also a dead man. The woman tells Miriam that she has been beaten by her husband, Ed Stanley, and begs her to look under a stone in the fireplace. Miriam learns that her abductor is Blake Stanley, Ed's cousin. Ed returns and orders Blake to leave. In the fight that follows, Ed is badly wounded, and Blake then tells Miriam the story of the death of Henry Stanley and the disappearance of the papers containing the secret of her grandfather's treasure. Relieved by Blake's story, Miriam produces the treasure map that she found under the fireplace, and together they set out to recover her grandfather's gold.