"Alkali" Ike, with a luxuriant growth of beard that he has carefully fostered, determines to see the city for the first time. He arrives, and not being a good dodger, is knocked insensible by the first automobile he encounters. His disfigured face is shaven by a doctor, who adorns it with several large strips of plaster, gives him some new clothes and turns him loose. Arriving back in his home town he meets his wife's sister, attempts to embrace her and she, not recognizing his shaven face, summons the aid of a group of punchers who immediately put Alkali through a course of rough treatment, including a ducking in the watering trough, and finally land him in the town jail. In desperation Alkali sends for his wife to identify him, but the loss of his whiskers puzzles her and she refuses to claim him. Alkali puts in a few more hours of torture and the sheriff is about to identify him as a notoriously escaped criminal, when the city doctor arrives and manages to extricate Alkali from his predicament. Thereupon, wifey claims him and takes him home for safe keeping.