Jed Thompson keeps a supply store near the gold fields, and is cordially disliked by the miners because of his miserly ways. An epidemic of malaria breaks out and Jed sees his chance to get rich by selling quinine capsules at five dollars a dozen. He refuses to let Ray Knowles, who has no money, take any of the medicine on credit for his sick father, and sternly forbids Dora, his daughter, to part with any quinine except for cash. The next day Ray returns, pleading that his father is much worse. Dora, who is alone in the store, gives him the capsules. On returning and discovering her action, Jed Thompson remains to tend shop and forces his daughter to work the claim. Dora becomes ill from exposure. But Thompson is too stingy to waste quinine upon her. In her delirium she wanders to the Knowles cottage, where she is taken in and nursed back to health by Ray, Her father comes to claim her hut the miners hold an indignation meeting, and then they give the raiser his choice of selling out or being kicked out. He chooses the former, and starting with his pile across the desert, on finding a little gold in the sand he uses his last drop of water panning it. The old man dies of thirst and in his last delirious dreams it seems to him that everything about him has turned to gold.