When a malaria epidemic breaks out, miserly store owner Jed Thompson exploits the situation by selling essential quinine capsules at an exorbitant price to the local gold miners. He refuses credit to miner Ray Knowles, whose father is sick. Jed’s daughter Dora, however, gives Ray some capsules. For this Jed banishes her to work in the mines. When she falls ill with the disease, he withholds the medication and wandering in delirium she is taken in by the Knowles. Rallying the other miners, they cast Jed out into the desert where he perishes, imagining all around him has turned to gold.