On the Fordyce farm all appears prosperous . . . with wide, lightly rolling lands abutting the railroad line, and tenants keeping the fields in neat order. Yet now as the laird's daughter, Alexa Fordyce, runs across the uneven ground, she wonders at these recent shows of coldness from her father, and at his seeming lack of generosity -- surely not true expressions of the father she knows . . . yet more and more apparent since the day he took ownership of these lands. Has he changed?

The hurrying Alexa, nearly out of breath, clutches a bottle of brandy she hopes will be of aid -- for moments ago she was astonished to see a car of a train being cast off the rails, with a violence that must have caused injury Then on the ground by the tracks she sees the man stretched out -- pale and with eyes closed, and leg twisted . . . where but at her own homestead might he find care?