Dick Sudlow, having been expelled from college, is sent by his father, president of the Hydrox Power Company, into the field to learn the business from "ground to wires." Dick falls in love with Phoebe Davis. The company learns after a survey that it must have the Davis farm for a reservoir site and President Sudlow sends Grafton, his manager and confidential man, into the valley to buy the farm. Davis, however, will not sell. Sudlow tells Grafton that the site is worth $50,000 to the company, and the company is not particular who gets the money. This awakens the cupidity of Grafton. He makes another attempt to buy the farm of Davis, and on being unsuccessful, enters into a plot with Bud Summers, a hired hand who has been rejected by Phoebe, to ruin Davis by a series of fires. Davis's crops in storage are burned, and the old man is forced to place a mortgage on the farm which Grafton obtains through a village shyster. Davis counts on getting square with his next year's crops, but these are destroyed through incendiarism, and Davis is obliged to sell the farm to the shyster. Grafton, as the transfer takes place, makes known that he is the buyer of the farm for the company. Davis upbraids Grafton, but Grafton tells him to deliver his arraignment to Dick, whose father instigated the purchase. Davis does, and Phoebe also turns "cold" to Dick. Grafton takes the deed to the farm to Sudlow and pockets a good $35,000 through the plot. Dick follows and persuades his father to go to the valley and square the thing with Davis. Grafton has, meanwhile, hurried to a transmission station, where he has put Summers to work, to induce Summers to leave the country. While there Dick and his father arrive at the station and the two plotters take refuse in the lift where the high power cable enters the station. Summers overhears Dick below tell how Grafton netted himself $35,000. Summers, incensed over getting but a few hundred dollars for his work, turns on Grafton. Grafton, a smaller man, tries to trip Summers and throw him against the high power cables. Summers, ignorant of the danger, seizes Grafton and drives him back into the high tension wires. Both men are killed by the contact. Summers getting the current through Grafton's body. Dick and his father go on to the Davis farm and square things just as Davis and Phoebe are leaving. It turns out that the company wants but 50 acres of the farm and the homestead will not he touched.
