A conceited college track star, used to being "big man on campus", gets a jolt when he loses an election to see who is the most popular man in the school.

Safely from behind some shrubbery, Johnny Hume, a boy of 6 or 7, witnesses the slaughter of his mother, father and brother by the guns of a gang led by "the Cat". Twenty years later finds Johnny grown to manhood, an expert bronc rider and target shooter - but paralyzed with fearful memories in an actual gunfight. This is brought home to him when some outlaws stick up the local saloon and Johnny ends up cowering behind the bar.

Reporter Steve Haines, on the trail of a business tycoon, follows his subject onto an ocean liner and gets wound up in a cruise full of intrigue, romance and murder.