Juanita, a Spanish girl, lives on a ranch with a couple of old servants. The place is run down and she is distressed at her inability to make anything off it. So pressing is her need that she has to consider marriage with Rafael, a prosperous Mexican landowner, whom she really dislikes, but who is much in love with her. Just as she is about to accept him, Gray, a young American surveyor, offers her $1,000 for a right of way across her land. To her this is fortune and she hails it is freedom from Rafael's attentions. Rafael's anger is increased by the fact that Juanita and Gray fall in love with each other. Rafael comes upon Gray making love to Juanita. He turns Gray's horse loose, steals up unseen by the lovers and stabs Gray in the back. In his anger he is about to kill Juanita also but she, determined not to die and leave Gray unavenged, uses all her powers of fascination and succeeds in making Rafael think that she really loved him all the time. Meanwhile, Brooks, an associate of Gray's on the surveying party, has discovered Gray's riderless horse and comes to the ranch seeking him. Just as Juanita, in her desperation, is kissing Rafael over Gray's body, Brooks knocks at the gate. Rafael suspects a trap and hastily covers Gray's body with a rug, seizes Juanita and presses his knife against her, warning her that if she makes a sign he will kill her. Brooks appears and is surprised to see the two on such intimate terms, but Rafael tells him that they are engaged when Brooks asks for Gray and Rafael tells him that Gray has not been there. Brooks, however, sees Gray's hat on the table. Juanita manages to "telegraph" a look to him, and Brooks, seeing wine on the table, proposes a health to her future happiness, and Raphael, to avoid suspicion, is forced to drink, but never relinquishes his hold upon Juanita. As she is about to drink she throws the contents of her glass in Rafael's face and wrenches herself free. Brooks has Rafael covered and Juanita, throwing herself upon Gray's body from which she has torn the concealing rug, finds that he is still alive.