Albert and Jim Glendenning, two brothers, are in love with Gertrude Grayson and this is the cause of the first disagreement that the two brothers have ever had. At last, when his brother goes away on a trip, Albert tells the girl that he is dead and so gets her to marry him. Years later the other brother returns and when he finds what has occurred he persuades Gertrude to elope with him. But at the crossroads they are misled by a sign post and come to a desert instead of the town that they hoped to reach. While proceeding along a cliff Jim slips and falls into the marsh below. When Gertrude reaches him only his hand is to be seen. She takes the hand to try to get him out but the hand closes on hers and she is held prisoner. Several days later Albert finds the two of them there, the woman still held in the viselike grip of the hand protruding from the marsh.
—Moving Picture World synopsis