The Usurper plot
James Maddox, a man who doesn't like women, travels west to make his fortune. On the way, he saves a beautiful young woman from a narrow ledge just below a sheer cliff. She turns out to be Beatrice Clive, an English girl vacationing at the family estate with her wealthy father, Lord Dulverton. Six years pass and Maddox, now a wealthy farmer, learns that the Dulvertons' estate is up for sale. Still attracted to Beatrice, he contacts her about buying the estate, only to discover that the Dulverton family is in such dire financial straits that Beatrice has been forced to become engaged to the wealthy but mean-spirited Sir George Trenery.