In the rugged coastal town of Glen Cove, Paul Otard feigns love for Belle, the wife of saloon owner "Black Jack" Fanning, in the hope that she will reveal the hiding place of John Farley's illegal whiskey shipments. John's tomboyish daughter Jess finds an old dress of her mother's in the attic and tries it on just as Paul appears. Struck by her beauty, Paul tries to kiss Jess, but she drives him away at the point of a gun. Later she finds her father dead and, in order to discover the murderer's identity, becomes a dancer in Fanning's saloon. There she meets and falls in love with detective Steve Douglas, who has been given the assignment of exposing the whiskey smugglers, but when she learns that her father was killed with Steve's gun, she resolves to kill him. Just in time, Jess finds that it was Paul who committed the murder, and with a great sense of relief, she is joined to Steve.