Concerned about the failing health of Rhoda Tuttle, his fiancée, John DeWitt takes her to the lavish Arizona home of his friends, Jack and Katherine Newman. Although the Newmans try to cheer Rhoda, who has lost her parents in a train wreck, she remains listless and melancholy. While walking in the desert, Rhoda is bitten by a tarantula but is saved by Kut-le, a Yale-educated Indian employed as a superintendent on Newman's irrigation project. Because of his strong belief in the curative effects of life in the desert, Kut-le kidnaps Rhoda and forces her to live in a manner far removed from the comforts and confinements of civilization.