Tom Blackford is counting upon a promised promotion to enable him to marry Alice Rand, the daughter of a mine president; the appointment goes instead to Rand's nephew. Tom marries Alice anyway, much to the distress of her father, who discredits Tom in Alice's eyes by quoting to her Tom's incautious remark that the road to advancement seems to lie through relationship. Rand appoints Tom to be superintendent of his toughest mining camp, instructing his other executives that he wants Tom to fail at the job. Alice accompanies Tom to the camp, but she remains his wife in name only. Joe Lawler, the assistant foreman, working with the owner of a local saloon, foments trouble among the workers, and their joint efforts soon result in a strike. Tom destroys the saloon after a drunken engineer nearly kills some of the mine workers. Tom later discredits Lawler when he discloses that Lawler has been cheating the miners with crooked scales.