Summary
“Rainbow” Riley, a fresh-faced cub reporter for the Louisville Ledger, finds his initial assignment to the Kentucky mountains — ostensibly a pastoral respite — quickly devolving into a perilous entanglement. Tasked with chronicling the escalating animosity between the feuding Ripper and White clans, Riley arrives armed not with conventional journalistic tools, but with an array of athletic gear and an inexplicable confidence in his boomerang. His romantic pursuit of Alice Ripper, the local beauty already pledged to the formidable Tilden McFields, a notorious “killer” within her own clan, alienates the Rippers. Simultaneously, his polite disinterest in Becky White, who harbors an affection for him, draws the ire of the White faction. Caught between two warring families, both determined to eliminate him, Riley’s attempts at elopement with Alice are thwarted by McFields. A daring rescue via a precarious cable swing across a ravine only postpones the inevitable, as he finds himself cornered by the combined wrath of both clans. It is only a comically misinterpreted telegram, transforming “unprecedented danger” into “president in danger,” that mobilizes the military and air force, leading to a dramatic, last-minute rescue. Riley returns to his paper, not just with a sensational exclusive, but with Alice by his side, having inadvertently turned a local skirmish into a national incident.
Synopsis
Nerve lands "Rainbow" Riley a job as cub reporter on the Louisville Ledger. His first big assignment is to cover a feud in the Kentucky mountains between the Ripper and White clans. Thinking that the assignment is in the nature of a vacation, "Rainbow" provides himself with athletic equipment. Arrived at the scene of the hostilities, "Rainbow" is forced to declare his ability to use a boomerang as a weapon of defense instead of a sawed-off shotgun. Because "Rainbow" is in love with Alice Ripper, the village belle and sweetheart of Tilden McFields, known as the "killer" of the Ripper clan, he antagonizes the Rippers. Conversely because he cannot fall in love with Becky White, who loves him, he incurs the enmity of the White faction. Both sides set out to exterminate him. He elopes with Alice, sending a telegram to his newspaper stating that there is unprecedented danger in the mountains. The lovers, however, are captured by McFields, who releases "Rainbow" upon the girl's promise to renounce him. Later "Rainbow" rescues Alice by taking a precarious swing across a deep ravine on the end of a cable wire. Trapped by enraged feudists of both sides, "Rainbow" keeps them temporarily at bay by giving them a fusillade of golf, tennis and base-balls. Meanwhile the telegram telling of the unprecedented danger has been interpreted to read "president in danger," and the militia, and the air force hasten to the scene succoring "Rainbow" and Alice in the very nick of time. "Rainbow" the cub, returns to his paper not only with the biggest scoop of the feud that the paper has ever had, but also with the adorable Alice.
