There is really nothing in her life worth, living for: young, pretty, she is the wife of a vicious old gold prospector on the God-forsaken wastes of the frozen North: her life is one long session of suffering and drudgery, her existence with the prospector nothing but a series of abuses and unjustified violences. In this first scene, in fact, he is hurling at her the victuals, which she has placed before him, and which do not please him. And this even though a friend, a young man, is in the cabin visiting. When the brute leaves the cabin the visitor cannot help but tell her of his sympathy, and with no pretense at loving her, tells her that she can find relief if she will flee with him: it is not the proposition of a lover, but of a man. She feels that she needs the protection he offers, and, after gathering up her belongings, they both set out over the bleak, desolate snows, dragging a sled after them. They come to the cabin of an Indian and prepare to rest for the night. The runaway wife, on stepping outside, is astounded to behold the figure of her husband, dragging a sled after him, plodding along on the trail. Anxiously she waits, and is relieved to see him enter a deserted cabin close at hand. She makes a resolve. She knows that if he sees her first it means her death, and sneaking back into the cabin, she takes the gun from her companion, who is in his bunk, the Indian sleeping on the floor to allow her the other bunk. Straight to the deserted shack she goes, climbing in through a window. Her nemesis is on the floor: he draws, both fire: his hand is shattered; another exchange, he is hit again. She goes back to the cabin, but her companion sees her and she tearfully tells him all about it, the Indian listening. Her husband, meanwhile, yelling for help, arouses some men, who are soon listening to his accusation of his wife's friend. The woman, summoned, protests, but the accused insists on shouldering the blame, and is marched off to be hanged. But before the noose is tightened the grim old Indian tells what he knows. The man is liberated, given a "running chance" for life, and the sturdy settlers of the Northland count the incident closed. The wife, returning to the cabin, realizes that life is worthless to her, and is about to end it all when the husband enters. The sight of the pistol at her temple awakens his better self, and the great light that is in all men's hearts, but burns only in some, flickers, brightens, then bursts into full flame.