While working as a research technician for the wealthy Allan Pruitt, Kimble gets involved in the business of Allan's teenage daughter, Janice, who returns home after spending a year in a mental hospital recovering from a nervous breakdown after witnessing a young boy under her care get killed by two vicious stray dogs. But Allan's new wife, Dorina, does not take a liking to Janice and plots to drive her insane by hiring a neighbor to make his pet dogs bark in the nearby woods and convince Janice that the dogs are alive (they were captured and put to sleep by the local dog-catcher). But when Kimble claims that he has heard the dogs barking, Dorina asks the local sheriff to investigate Kimble to find any dirt on him.