船长老比尔已多年未见自己的儿子了，可当儿子终于大学毕业出现在老比尔面前时，他矮小的身材却不禁让万分期待的老比尔颇感失望。与此同时，小比尔的女友也回乡拜访父亲，没想到却是老比尔的死对头金船长。两人的感情面临危机。一天，一场飓风突如其来，更让港口险象环生。

电影以1850年代加州淘金热为背景，讲述了一对年轻夫妇的爱情与残酷的现实之间的冲突。本片改编自法兰辛·里弗斯的同名小说。

Harry Ryan, a wealthy spendthrift, falls in love with Mary Gardner, a beauty shop employee, and marries her. Mary, discouraged because she is unable to cure Ryan of his dissolute ways, leaves him. She returns after a change of heart to find her husband bedridden and despondent. At the moment of reconciliation it is revealed that in reality Mary, unattached, was only dreaming, as the result of reading a book entitled Marriage Morals, by J. C. Black.