On the Level

Merlin Warner, a sheep rancher's only child, enjoys riding and reading. Although poor, they are happy until rustler Pete Sontag kills her father in a raid and carries Merlin off. A few years later, Pete smuggles drugs under the cover of running a saloon, where Merlin, coerced by Pete's beatings, has become the dancer Mexicali Mae. When morphine addict Joe Blanchard appeals to Mae's love of books and music, she falls in love with him, and after Pete frames Joe for a murder that Pete committed, Mae hides Joe in a homestead in the hills. After many struggles, Joe is cured of his addiction and proposes to Mae out of gratitude. She accepts, but when his mother and fiancée Eleanor arrive and offer her money to leave, Mae does not take the money, but becomes convinced that she is not good enough for Joe and writes him that she is returning to the saloon. Joe follows but sees her apparently happy there. Mae returns to her shack and is about to shoot herself when Pete intervenes.