An adaptation of the famous poem of the late Secretary of State, John Hay. Jim Bludso was the engineer of the Mississippi River boat "Prairie Belle," and true to his life-long boast as to what he would do in an emergency, he held "her nose agin the bank till the last soul got ashore," when the steamer took fire: and Bludso's "ghost went up alone in the smoke of the 'Prairie Belle.'"
—Moving Picture World synopsis