Southwest ranchers Jim Downing, Art Parsons, and his brother Joel Parsons fight over Judith Benson, a beautiful milliner whom they all want to marry. She is swept off her feet by the ruthless Downing, however, and agrees to marry him. Art is found dead, apparently having killed himself in his grief, and Joel, blaming Judith for his death, sets off for Alaska to assuage his sorrow. Several years later, Joel meets Judith in a Yukon dance-hall, where, having left her rotten husband, she has become an indentured entertainer. Joel (known now as "Silent Sanderson") uses his fists and a payment of gold to free Judith, and takes her to his cabin, planning to avenge his brother's death on her. Jim Downing follows and, stricken with snow blindness, brags to Joel that he will kill him just as he once killed Art Parsons. When Downing attacks Judith, Joel defends her, and throws the battered Downing to a pack of wolves in the snow. He forgives Judith, and with his sympathy rekindled, takes her back to the Southwest cow country.—AFI