The play is set in the American West. Blanco Posnet, a local drunk and reprobate, is brought before the court accused of stealing a horse belonging to the Sheriff. He been found walking along a road out of town after having left his brother's house in the early hours of the morning. The same night the horse had gone missing from his brother's stable. His accusers assume he has sold or concealed the horse. Blanco says they can't convict him without evidence that he ever had the horse. He also says he was owed some jewellery belonging to his mother, which had been bequeathed to him, but his brother had refused to hand it over. Even if he did take the horse he did so as payment for the debt his brother owed. Unfortunately he was unaware that the horse was merely being stabled by his brother, but belonged to the Sheriff. His brother, a reformed drunkard who is now a church Deacon, lectures Blanco on morality and judgement, but Blanco ridicules his brother's view of God.