Summary
In a narrative steeped in the dramatic reversals of fortune characteristic of early 20th-century American ambition, John Porter, a once-affluent stockbroker, finds his financial empire crumbling under the weight of imprudent speculation. His subsequent westward exodus with his wife and nascent daughter, Bab, marks not merely a geographical shift but a profound reorientation of identity. A decade later, the untamed frontier has forged Bab into a formidable cowgirl, a stark contrast to the refined Eastern upbringing her mother, ever-conscious of social standing, still covets. This independent spirit finds its complement in Richard Sterling, a neighboring rancher whose own astute maneuvers have elevated him from humble clerk to wealthy landowner. Their burgeoning romance, however, is met with the mother’s disdain, who envisions a more prestigious match for her daughter. The opportune discovery of oil beneath their ranch provides the mother with the means and pretext to dispatch Bab to an Eastern finishing school, a forced return to the very world they had fled. Yet, upon her vacation return, Bab confronts a fractured household, her parents' marriage having succumbed to the very societal pressures her mother chased. Embodying the film's titular role, Bab then embarks on an audacious mission: to mend the fissures in her parents’ relationship, thereby restoring familial harmony, and, in a triumphant assertion of self-determination, to secure her own union with Sterling, orchestrating a dual resolution that redefines success on her own terms.
Synopsis
Having lost his fortune through poor speculation, stockbroker John Porter goes West with his wife and young daughter Bab. After ten years on the ranch, Bab develops into the real cowgirl and falls in love with neighboring ranch owner Richard Sterling, a former clerk who, through shrewd maneuvering, struck it rich. Bab's mother, who has social ambitions, frowns upon the affair, and when oil is discovered on their ranch, she seizes the opportunity to send her daughter back East to finishing school. Returning home for vacation, Bab discovers that her mother and father have separated. Bab then decides to fix everything up, beginning with her parents' marriage and ending with her own wedding to Sterling.
