Adaptation of Molière's play of the same name. The story revolves around a wife who plays a trick on her husband to get revenge on him, by agreeing with some men to beat him as he beat her, put him in an awkward situation, and pretend to be a doctor.
The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father.
Young forester Sixt is wounded one night. Smuggling in the mountains is the reason. By day, the brothers Benno and Simon Schaidler are respectable citizens - by night, they are smugglers and poachers.
A young street vendor who is a cockfighting aficionado, attracted by the image of one of them, settles on the ranch of its owner where he falls in love with the foreman's daughter.