"Rusty" Noonan, a hard-boiled, cynical, selfish smart-aleck, working as a mechanic in a Detroit garage, is outraged when he has to work overtime on repairing the shoddy work he had done on a taxicab, gets into an argument with the shop-foreman, Wison. The foreman takes a swing at him and misses but Noonan, a trained boxer connects with his punch. The blow catches Wilson on the chin, knocks him off his feet and his head hits the floor and he is killed. Noonan flees, wanders about the country and eventually arrives in the desert-town of Las Vegas, Nevada, where the mighty Boulder Dam is being constructed on the near-by Colorado River. He is befriended by Ann Vangarick, gets a construction job on the dam project, and he begins to see the error of his past ways.