Young forester Sixt is wounded one night. Smuggling in the mountains is the reason. By day, the brothers Benno and Simon Schaidler are respectable citizens - by night, they are smugglers and poachers. They daredevilly pursue their nocturnal "craft". However, a number of people in Aurach have no idea of the smugglers' activities. For example Barbara, the landlady of the "Gamsbock", and her sister Gretl. One night Sixt, the young forester, is wounded by a pistol shot. Suspicion falls on forester Aiblinger, since it is his lost service pistol that is found near the wounded man.