Slim Jim, a slippery-fingered crook, seeing a chance to make a good haul, takes advantage of the opportunity, robs a house and makes his getaway. At the same time the daughter of the victim decides to elope and joins her fiancé by means of the ladder-route. The eloping couple hire a buggy and hasten away to escape her father. They are seen by Ima Simp, almost a detective, who mistakes them for Slim Jim and his female accomplice. Ima Simp decides to do some sleuthing that will make Sherlock Holmes seem like a back-number and immediately gets on the trail. The chase that follows is a hummer and is funny enough to make the Sphinx laugh. Does Simp catch the fugitives? Sure he does, but at that moment the girl's father appears on the scene and thanks the young man for eloping with his daughter, thus taking her off his own hands. Poor Simp then realizes that as a detective he's a lemon.
—Moving Picture World synopsis