A former Yale student returns to the land where his Spanish forefathers once reigned supreme and lives in the Mexican hills, occasionally riding into border towns, where he takes the law into his own hands and protects the weak from crooked elements. Known as Quemado, he prevents the marriage of a girl to a notorious desperado and meets Joanna Thatcher, an eastern girl to whom he makes the promise that she will someday come to love him. Joan becomes engaged to Gretorix, unwilling to admit to herself that she has become infatuated with the daring horseman. On Joan's wedding day, Quemado kidnaps her, forces her to admit that she loves him, and arranges to be wed by a parson on horseback as they ride furiously into the hills to avoid the pursuit of the angry Gretorix.