Long ago, Hiawanda came across a missionary in the hills of New Mexico. She sees a cross lying upon the Bible, the missionary having fallen asleep while reading. She notices the ribbon attached to the cross and takes it. Later, Gray Eagle, her Indian lover, notices the cross and recognizes the connection between the cross and the maid and suspects Hiawanda, his sweetheart. He swears vengeance. Hiawanda runs to the missionary and warns him. The maid starts for her companions and in returning, hears a rolling stone, which attracts her attention to her Indian lover on the trail of the white man. She turns to warn the white man, but too late. The Indian's arrow stands true and the missionary falls on his face in the water, shot in the back. Hiawanda gives him succor, removes the arrow from his back and nurses him back to life. The missionary, in return, teaches her the alphabet. Later a call from the east comes and the missionary determines to answer it as per his orders at once. Not suspecting that Hiawanda's love has grown to the extent it has, he is hurt and pained, but leaves her. But her heart goes to the east with him. She, in sorrow, with a broken heart, turns back to her people, who spurn her because of the cross she wears, which represents the white man. She is driven from her home, and taking the cross in her hands, she goes into a boat of boughs and drifts toward a great falls, and we leave her as we found her, in darkness.