Summary
A sun-scorched morality play etched onto celluloid: orphaned Molly, sole heir to a barren ranch and a played-out silver vein, becomes the pawn in Plimsoll’s slyboots carnival of graft—his saloon a gaudy cathedral of sin where whiskey baptisms and stacked decks preach the gospel of dispossession. Into this venal Eden ride three improbable archangels—Sandy Burke, a laconic buckaroo whose grin hides a knight-errant’s code; Soda Water Manning, a wiry trickster trading sleight-of-hand for redemption; Mormon Peters, a polygamist prophet with a heart as wide as the Salt Flats—each astride a cayuse as scruffy as their vows. Their courtship of justice is a slapstick liturgy: dynamite duels at the mine headframe, a poker game played with marked tombstones, a jailbreak executed via a freight wagon painted like a whorehouse piano. Love blooms between the cowboy and the heiress not in moonlight but in the harsh glare of carbide lamps, amid ore dust that glitters like mica on her lashes. The plot pirouettes from swindle to salvation, culminating in a scaffold spectacle where Molly’s testimony unhangs the noose and Plimsoll’s smirk curdles into the gallows mask he forged for others.
Synopsis
Orphaned Molly is heir to a ranch and mine and falls under the influence of saloon-owner Plimsoll, who schemes to deprive her of the inheritance. Sandy Brouke and his pals, Soda Water Manning and Mormon Peters, wander off the range and champion the girl's interests. Sandy falls in love with the girl. The partners succeed in getting the mine from the conspirators and working it themselves while sending Molly off to school. Plimsoll frames Sandy and his men, however, and she returns to find them in jail. Through Molly's efforts Sandy is released, and ultimately the crooks are defeated.
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