Mary Halstead is an elderly woman stricken with a terminal illness and a guilty conscience. She cannot do anything about the illness but she believes she can salve her conscience if she can find the son she abandoned as a child. She has journeyed west with the train because she has received word from a lawyer in a town on the trail purporting to know the whereabouts of her son. When Major Adams finds a young man left for dead in the brush, he takes him in despite the rope burns around the boy's neck which causes alarm amongst the travellers. They think someone has tried to hang him and jump to the conclusion that he is a criminal. The young man so reminds her of her son that Mrs. Halstead begs to look after him until he is well. He seems nice enough, but he still has to explain those rope burns and why it appears someone tried to hang him. In his story lies the truth about Mrs. Halstead's son.