Johnny Parker, who has recently purchased the Banning Ranch, is generally suspected of being the Mysterious "Hawk," a road agent. While riding with his ranch men on the heights, Johnny spots a stage robbery on the road below. Determined to capture the "Hawk" to clear his name, he gallops down and disperses the desperadoes. Johnny and his men follow the bandits into the thickets. Banning, who is the "Hawk," orders his men to hide in the caves while he stops at a stream an puts on the minister's clothes he usually wears. Thus disguised he waits for Johnny and tells him that no riders have passed that way. Peggy Brooks, a pretty girl who makes herself ugly by wearing spectacles and masquerades as "Professor" Brooks, is a new arrival in town. She pretends to be interested in mineralogy and goes to inspect the caves, while Johnny, who has heard that the caves are hunted, goes to satisfy his curiosity about the ghosts. Banning catches the girl with her glasses off and realizes that she is beautiful and that she is some sort of a trickster to be feared. He forces her into an automobile and drives tower the border. Johnny sees from above. He makes a daring slide on horseback down a steep incline, heads off the fugitive, jumps in the car and battles Banning to a finish. Then he takes the girl in his arms.