In this burlesque of melodramas, the evil guy takes umbrage at Nellie's refusal to marry him. He ties her to a log and starts the sawmill. Will stalwart Dan beat the bad guy and rescue Nellie? Even more important, does anyone care?
Here's one of a series of melodramatic cartoons produced by Walter Lantz around this time, about the efforts of Nellie in various forms. Its use of melodramatic devices is supposed to be funny, but they are not handled in a manner that raises a laugh, and the various gags are competently, but not particularly amusingly rendered.
There is some good voice work by Billy Bletcher, Shirley Reed, and Mel Blanc, but that doesn't make this much good.