Senior inspector of fishery protection Trofim Rusanov, a man of “firm principles,” who is used to seeing other people as swindlers—by the will of circumstances and events—must make his way around a lake through the woods for eighteen kilometers. On the way, in a hut, Trofim Rusanov finds a small child. Driven by a thirst for “justice,” he begins searching for the “criminal”—the mother who abandoned the child. And it is in this situation that the inspector, for the first time in his life, feels that his firm views about life are far from always fair.