Dance-hall queen Kate Carewe is the toast of the gold-mining camp of Huxley's Gulch. One day a minister, Ralph Bowen, arrives to "clean up" the town. He is scorned by the miners, gamblers and "loose women" of the place, especially Kate, who resents that Bowen calls her a "scarlet woman". One day a plague hits the settlement and many of the townspeople abandon the disease's victims and head for the hills--except for Kate and Ralph, who begin to see each other in a new light.—[email protected]