Noticing that Jim is partial to a drink Ruth breaks off her engagement to him and turns to John who until then had kept his love for her to himself They get married and move to a cabin in the forest where John works as a woodcutter In the meantime Jim who has become a hoodlum and ignores that his rival has married his former fiancée runs into John at the lumber camp and challenges him to a duel for the same evening He then goes to look for money to buy himself alcohol and breaks into John and Ruths cabin Surprised to find Ruth there he realizes that she has married John and has given him a child On leaving the cabin he looks to the vengeance the duel is going to allow him to wreak Yet he eventually thinks better and ashamed at his own idea and out of the love he still feels for Ruth decides to spare her husbands life He shows up at the duel with a gun loaded with blanks