Mary, the daughter of Sheriff Butts, is the telegrapher at Loneville Station. Her sweetheart, Tom Gaynor, and she have had a quarrel because he has gone across the desert on a mission, the reason of which he will not explain. What he did go for is an engagement ring. Mary gets a telegram for her father, advising him to apprehend Tom Gaynor, as evidence in a recent train hold-up points to him. Mary, torn between love and duty, hides the telegram in her dress and wanders off in a sort of daze. She runs across the real fugitives dividing the loot and hastens home for her father. She finds he has gone to town, and, finding an old pair of bracelets and a revolver, goes herself to capture the outlaws. She gets the drop on the bandits and handcuffs one to the other. They trick her, and wrenching the gun from her, leave her unconscious and get away with the loot, still handcuffed to each other. Later the sheriff finds his daughter delirious, and takes her home. Then he finds the telegram in her bodice and is on the lookout for Tom. The fugitives get lost in the desert and are unable to free themselves. They fight and one kills the other, then drags him along until he finds a stone and breaks the handcuffs. A sandstorm comes up, and in the midst of it the bandit struggles on, led by a vision of his dead companion linked to his wrist. Exhausted and dying, he at last finds himself back beside the body of the dead man, and finds himself strongly bound to him. He dies trying to place the loot back in the other's hands. Tom, returning, finds them there, and taking the loot, goes to see Mary. There the sheriff apprehends him with the evidence upon him. Tom cannot explain other than that he found it in the desert, which is not believed. Tom's voice brings Mary back to consciousness, and everything is explained, even to the ring. That is slipped upon her finger with a lover's kiss.
—Moving Picture World synopsis