A Navajo raised by whites, Slim Girl (Lupe Velez) returns to the reservation to attend it's annual dance, where she meets Laughing Boy (Ramon Novarro), an expert silversmith who's new to the community. Seducing and marrying the youth, Slim Girl convinces him that she should trade his craftwork in town, but her repeated absences soon lead Laughing Boy to discover that his wife is the mistress of a rancher, and he sets out for revenge. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke and partly shot at the Navajo Indian Reservation in northeast Arizona, Laughing Boy was based on the novel by Oliver La Farge, winner of the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.