Summary
A grizzled ex-cavalryman, Bob Wiley, carves a sun-bleached paradise from the New Mexico dust, raising the flag every dawn beside his adobe cabin while his small son chases lizards through chamisa; a glint in the creek soon gilds their days, but the vein of ore becomes a noose when crooked jurisprudence—greased palms in Lawton’s Ridge—voids his deed with a single stamp. Dispossessed, Wiley rides east, clutching brittle maps and a heart still tattooed with San Juan Hill shrapnel, only to be smothered in Washington’s marble indifference; he returns to find his land fenced, his boy’s wooden toy rifle splintered by a stray bullet, and the gravemarker already weather-worn. Bitterness ferments into treason: he swears allegiance to Pancho Zapilla’s ragtag insurrectos, guiding them toward the sleeping border town like a wolf leading wolves. Yet the midnight sight of star-spangled bunting in a cantina mirror detonates his conscience; in a whirl of dust and kerosene he sabotages the raid, shields the same colonel he deceived, and—bloodied but unbroken—hoists the colors once more, reclaiming not acreage but identity.
Synopsis
Bob Wiley had staked out a homestead in New Mexico, five miles from the border town of Lawton's Ridge. Wiley was a pioneer, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, and a devout believer in the superiority of his country to any other land on the face of the globe. He lived in a whitewashed cabin, over which the Stars and Stripes forever waved, with his little son, Bobby, and a faithful Indian, Joe Good-Boy. Wiley had lost his wife in the rough pioneer days. When his boy was yet a baby, he chanced on gold in the bed of a stream that ran through his clearing which gave him another incentive to save all he could and make his boy a rich man. While, however, he was drawing out more gold daily and his bank account in Lawton Ridge was growing steadily, a pair of corrupt local politicians, attracted by the wealth of the find, conspired to rob him of his homestead on a technicality. In this they succeeded and Bob Wiley finds himself dispossessed by the agents of a government he has served in its hour of need. He goes to Washington to prove his claim, gets no redress, and returns to find his land preempted and his little boy dead. His heart is filled with bitterness against his own country and he seeks revenge by joining the bandit forces of Pancho Zapilla who is preparing to raid Lawton's Ridge. Entering the village as a spy he tells the colonel in command of the American troops that Zapilla contemplates a raid on a town several miles distant. This information sends the troops off on a false scent and leaves Lawton's Ridge open to an attack by the bandits. But Wiley gradually awakens to the enormity of his offense and by courage and devotion he saves the town, thwarts the bandits, pledges his allegiance to the flag, and becomes once again a loyal, patriotic American.
