Jim Guthrie (Dana Andrews) is a fugitive who has been run out of town after being nearly lynched for the murder of a man he did not kill. He returns, bearing the physical and mental scars of his experience, determine to clear his name. The would-be-lynchers , fearing that Guthrie will exact some kind of revenge for their anti-social treatment to him, set out to get him before he gets them. Laurie Mastin (Donna Reed) is the pregnant girl he left behind who marries another man. The real killer is identified.