Dave Tolliver is a night-dispatcher at a small trunk-line railroad. A local company payroll has been left at the depot and a masked man comes in to steal it. Dave fights him off but, during the fracas, Dave misses the message to change the tracks for a passenger train, and there is a crash with the loss of many lives. The authorities don't believe his story. He is found guilty of negligence and is given a five-year prison sentence. But he escapes and begins the life of a fugitive on the run. He goes into a rural station and finds a dispatcher who has fallen ill. He covers for him and then finds out the masked robber who caused his problems also works at this station.