[1][2] The plot involves a movie star who erroneously assumes that she has murdered someone and flees to Kentucky.

Cynthia Meade (Clara Bow), a wild, high spirited New York movie actress, meets Jack Harrison (William Powell), a wealthy young New Yorker, in a Tennessee city.

Realizes how hard it will be to prove her innocence, Cynthea flees, thinking Harrison dead.

On a lonely road, Cynthia, half hysterical and nearly exhausted, appeals to Wade Murrell (Warner Baxter), a young mountaineer on the way back to his Kentucky home.

The presence of a “painted woman,” as the hill people call Cynthia, arouses a terrific antipathy toward Murrell, and he narrowly avoids being killed by one of their number.