After making a fortune in lumber, Brady determines to give his wife and daughter, Bella, a trip to New York. John, a friend of Brady's, in love with Bella, works in the woods with a broadaxe, with which he is an expert. While the girl in reality loves big, honest John, she teases him to the point of distraction, and finally tells him she will marry him only when he has shown his heroism in something. John is all broken up when Bella and her parents leave for the city, especially when she writes to him of Count Martini, a dapper little Frenchman, and describes how delightfully he kisses her hand. This stirs John to action, and hastily packing up, he starts for the city, determined to "wring that d____ Frenchman's neck." When he finds the Count proposing to Bella, what he doesn't do to the Count's nose isn't worth doing. The Count challenges John to a duel, and when tried out by one of the young men he chooses as a second, John is advised to skip, as the Count being a crack swordsman as well as pistol shot will surely kill him. In despair, the young woodsman is about to take the advice, when he happens to think of a clever idea. He hurries back to his friend and announces he is going to fight just the same. On arrival at the dueling grounds, all are appalled to discover that as John has the choice of weapons, he intends to fight with American broadaxes. Protests are useless and the Count is made to stand up with an axe, almost too heavy for him to lift. When John makes a rush for him, the Frenchman's nerve deserts him and he runs like a deer. Bella sees them racing past her, the Count's breath coming in sobbing gasps, and she stops John, begging him to tell her what it all means. Just then he would rather keep on after the Frenchman, but she throws her arms about him and asks him to take her back to the Northwest with him.