Sunlight's Last Raid

Summary

A locomotive slices through the ochre dawn of the frontier, its billowing steam foretelling the abduction of Janet Warned—silk-gloved heiress turned reluctant captive—by the enigmatic outlaw Captain Sunlight, whose name itself burns like a magnesium flare across the mesas. In the craggy hinterland she becomes both hostage and mirror to the desperado’s bruised mythos, until Jack Conway—laconic rancher stitched from dust and starlight—spirits her away through a gauntlet of sagebrush and gunpowder, though a swoon veils her rescuer’s face. Mistaking Jack for the very brigand who menaced her, Janet delivers the cowboy to a rope-happy posse, only to recant when laughter, not death, greets the case of mistaken identity; her urbane fiancé, suddenly pallid beside the sun-scorched hero, is discarded like a wilted carnation. Sunlight, stung by this symbolic emasculation, unleashes a cyclone of flame and hooves upon the range, converging at the Warned homestead where timbers splinter under a red-yellow dusk. While deputized townsmen trade lead with the marauders, Janet vaults astride a lathered mare, galloping to Fort Maxey in a veil of alkali to summon cavalry whose sabers glint like righteous scythes. The soldiers rout the gang, yet a stray slug finds Jack; as Janet binds his bleeding side, Sunlight looms for a final curtain of vengeance, only to be grappled and hurled into the chasm’s hungry maw, his legend swallowed by stone and silence.

Synopsis

To retaliate for Bill Warned's vigilante activity, Captain Sunlight, a notorious outlaw, kidnaps Warned's sister Janet, an Eastern society girl, from her train and holds her in the hills. Janet is rescued by Jack Conway, a rancher, but faints before getting a good look at him. Because he bears a resemblance to Sunlight, Janet turns Jack over to the posse the next time they meet. After Jack is released with a laugh by the posse, Janet dumps her Eastern fiancé in favor of the dashing cowboy. Sunlight, spurred on by his defeat, begins a series of raids on the local ranches that culminates in an attack on the Warned place. As a battle between the posse and the bandits rages, Janet escapes from the ranch and rides to Fort Maxey to summon the troops. With Janet leading the way, the troops defeat the outlaws, but Jack is shot in the fight. While tending to Jack's wounds, Janet is surprised by Sunlight, but finally overcomes him, tossing him over a cliff to his death.