Game warden Miller lives on an isolated island off the Carolina coast. The only other inhabitant is Evvie, an innocent and naive thirteen-year-old girl. Miller is sexually attracted to the girl. When Traver, a black musician on the run from a lynch mob after being falsely accused of rape, arrives on the island Miller wants to turn him in and get him out of his way. But Evvie likes Traver and protects him. When a preacher arrives from the mainland to "rescue" Evvie from her situation, Traver's presence is discovered. Miller is now forced to decide whether to turn Traver over to the mob and in so doing lose his standing in the girl's eyes.

Unjustly accused of raping a white woman, Traver, a Negro jazz clarinetist and laborer, flees from a Southern town to a nearby small island, the private game preserve of a group of wealthy sportsmen. The sole inhabitants of the island are game warden Miller and Evalyn, a girl in her early teens whose grandfather Pee Wee, the handyman, has just died. In Miller's temporary absence, Traver befriends Evalyn and pays her $20 for supplies. When the racist Miller learns of the incident, he hunts down the trespasser but later decides to let him remain as the new handyman. Having become aware of Evalyn's pubescence, Miller has sexual relations with her. The next day, Reverend Fleetwood and his boatman, Jackson, come to take Evalyn to a welfare home, and Miller swears the girl to secrecy. When Miller hears from them of the rape charge against Traver, he joins Jackson in hunting down and capturing him. Evalyn unwittingly reveals her relationship with Miller, and the preacher threatens to report Miller's conduct to the law. Fleetwood helps to prove Traver's innocence, knowing the doubtful character of the white woman, and instructs Miller to treat Traver fairly. Realizing that the Negro may be innocent and fearing that Fleetwood will report his affair with Evalyn, Miller helps Traver escape and suggests to the preacher his intention to marry Evalyn.