Driven to drink by poverty brought upon by the long illness of his wife, Joe Selling, a western miner, spends most of his time at the village bar, where one day his daughter Alice enters and pleads with him to come home. She is thrust aside by the brutal bartender, who orders her to leave the place when Dan Quigley, a rather shady character, takes her part, thrusts the bartender aside, and helping Joe to his feet, leads him out of the place and home. At home Alice pleads with both men to reform, but her father is obstinate and Dan says he is "too bad."