Grace, a school teacher, supports a delicate mother, and accepts a position to teach the Coyoteville school. When she arrives she is driven to a boarding house by Tom Champion, the sheriff, who falls in love with her. Jack arrests Big Bill and other cowboys for gambling and they swear vengeance. Seeking refuge from a band of half-drunken cowboys, Grace rushes into a notion store kept by Mrs. Leslie, a broken-down actress. Mrs. Leslie tells her that she is too beautiful to be safe and disguises her as a hideous old hag, so that she may walk home unmolested. Tom Champion is taken prisoner by the cowboys. Big Bill sees Grace, disguised as a hideous old hag, coming along the road. He has an inspiration and gives Tom the choice of being hung to a tree or married to the old hag. Tom, of course, chooses the latter. A marriage license is issued and the ceremony performed and later it is found that the old hag is in reality the pretty schoolma'am. The cowboys are beaten at their own game.