In the forests of the Ore Mountains, on the border with Bohemia, a gang of smugglers is up to mischief. Anyone who dares to oppose them is murdered in cold blood. The locals are paralyzed by fear of the ominous bush ghost that is said to be behind it all. Then a stranger turns up at the remote forester's lodge and begins investigating a murder that took place twenty years ago. Having become wealthy in the Alaskan gold fields, Arndt is now looking for the woman he once loved and whose perjury landed him in prison. The forester and the weaver Eduard Hauser help him with his investigations. But Hauser himself soon becomes the victim of a sinister intrigue. Fritz Seidelmann, an unscrupulous profiteer who is after Hauser's fiancée Angelika, lures him into a trap. Hauser is arrested as an alleged bush ghost. For the time being, Arndt can do nothing for him ...

Rolf Ludwig
as Gustav 'Arndt' Brandt

Kurt Böwe
as Gottlieb Wunderlich

Marianne Wünscher
as Barbara Wunderlich

Detlef Gieß
as Fritz Seidelmann

Ulrich Mühe
as Siegfried Strauch

Andreas Herrmann
as Eduard Hauser

Heike Meyer
as Angelika Hofmann

Hans-Joachim Brieske
as Franz Siebert

Jenny Gröllmann
as Frau Siebert

Barbara Dittus
as Frau Seidelmann