Plot Summary:Dance-hall queen Kate Carewe is the toast of the gold-mining camp of Huxley's Gulch. One day a minister, Ralph Bowen, arrives to \"clean up\" the town. He is scorned by the miners, gamblers and \"loose women\" of the place, especially Kate, who resents that Bowen calls her a \"scarlet woman\". One day a plague hits the settlement and many of the townspeople abandon the disease's victims and head for the hills--except for Kate and Ralph, who begin to see each other in a new light.