Summary
A sulphurous haze clings to the Blue Goose, a played-out silver vein clawing at the sky above a frontier town whose wooden façades already sag under the weight of unquiet ghosts. Into this sulphur-ripe crucible glides Kate Saxon—heir not merely to subterranean riches but to a whole tectonic history of blood, sweat, and corporate larceny—her veil of city crepe a black flag against the snow-dazzled Rockies. The opening riot is staged like a Delacroix canvas hurled into a rock-tumbler: pickaxes brandished like demented crucifixes, deputies spurring through slush the color of diluted wine, and the camera pirouetting amid the melee as though searching for a moral center it never quite finds. Once the smoke settles, Kate—half Carnegie, half Clytemnestra—re-scripts the mine’s ledger, hiking wages, shortening subterranean shifts, and installing ventilation shafts that inhale like new lungs. Old Bells, a grizzled engineer who speaks in engineering koans, becomes both Prospero and Jiminy Cricket, whispering that justice without affection calcifies into dogma. Enter Sheriff Tom Baxter: cattle baron, local colossus, his silver-star badge glinting like a promise he probably intends to break. Their courtship is a chess match played with dynamite; when suffragists petition Kate to unseat Tom, she hesitates, then leaps, winning the ballot count in a landslide that smells faintly of kerosene. Tom, stung yet intrigued, stages a false-bribe scandal, a petty gambit that lands him in his own jail; Kate frees him but keeps her heart under lock. A midnight stampede—hooves drumming like war timpani—interrupts their stalemate; Tom finally blurts love amid flying manes, but Kate rides off, refusing to be conquered by either horns or honeyed words. Only Bells, limping after them with a pocketful of blasting fuse and second chances, can coax the curtain toward a sunset that feels earned rather than imposed.
Synopsis
Kate Saxon inherits the Blue Goose mine in Colorado, and arrives as rioting miners battle a sheriff's posse. Once the disturbance has been quelled, Kate improves wages and working conditions. With the encouragement of old "Bells", the mining engineer, a friendship quickly develops between Sheriff Tom Baxter, a wealthy cattleman, and Kate. Consequently, when women suffragists urge Kate to run for sheriff, she is initially reluctant to oppose Tom, but finally accepts and wins the election. Tom decides to test Kate's mettle by leading her to believe that he bribed voters. His arrest convinces him that Kate is serious about her new job, and he admits that the story was false. Although Kate frees Tom, she does not forgive the lie. As she rides away, Tom follows her and they are caught in a cattle stampede after labor agitator Tremble dynamites the reservoir. They race for their lives, and when all danger has passed, Tom professes his love for Kate. She spurns him until old Bells finally brings about a reconciliation.
Review Excerpt
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The 1916 one-reel marvel By Right of Possession arrives today less like a dusty artifact and more like a stick of ancient dynamite whose fuse still sputters. Director Garfield Thompson, working from a scenario by Alvah Milton Kerr, understands that the Western is at heart a myth-making machine; his camera therefore never merely records—it indicts, seduces, and occasionally winks.
From the first frame, the Blue Goose mine is no postcard backdrop but a sulphur-breathing beast. Smoke tendrils coi..."
