Eighteen-year-old Bill Turner lands a summer job as a roustabout on a hay-press crew, and is soon exposed to the harsh realities of hard physical labor. Exhausted by the work and ridiculed for his slowness, he silently swears revenge against his chief tormentor, Jumbo. Enter Big George, whose job Bill has taken, and the young student learns a lesson in friendship and what it means to be a man of the West.