John Brown, the mate on a river steamboat, rescues a small boy from the clutches of a villainous deckhand, thereby gaining the roustabout's bitter enmity. Absorbed over the events of the day, the mate fails to bestow upon his wife the usual home-coming caress. Annoyed, she greets the coming of the stranger as a possible foil to arouse the husband's jealousy in punishment for the slight. The flirtation all but ends in a tragedy with discovery by the husband, who does not understand her innocent act.