From Kansas City, newlyweds Bill and Renie Partain are honeymooning at a quiet lakefront cabin in the Arkansas Ozarks. A recently fired newspaper reporter for being as he calls it "dead weight", he is able to convince her to relocate their honeymoon somewhere else with more action in he feeling restless in such an out of the way locale. What he doesn't tell her but that she quickly learns is that he wants to follow a lead on a potentially big story, which he thinks is his ticket back to being an employed reporter and able to support her. The details are what he refuses to tell her for her own protection: that he read in the local newspaper that a group of bank robbers, led by Tom Ellis, are thought to be in the area, specifically Ellis' hometown of Chatsburg, he wanting to get an exclusive story on Ellis. While Bill follows his lead, Renie follows her own leads to protect her husband.