The Three of Us

Summary

A skeletal Colorado mining hamlet, gutted by the ebbing boom, becomes the stage for a taciturn opera of dust, ore, and desire. Rhy MacGhesney—half-pioneer, half-sibyl—clings to her late father’s played-out claim as though memory itself could smelt gold. Clem, the elder brother, dreams of gaslight Manhattan rather than the wind-bitten plateau; Sonnie, still child enough to believe in maps, tags along. Across the rutted track, Lewis Beresford lounges in camel-hair tweed, a cigarette always half-lit, his smile a corporate prospectus in disguise. Steve Towney, the honest superintendent, carries dynamite calluses and an option on the adjoining lode that could resurrect the whole camp. On a Hallowe’en painted copper by bonfire, Mrs. Bix sets out her groaning board while Steve, grubbing in the hillside, chips into a vein that sings twenty-four karat. He sprints to Rhy, pressing ore samples and option papers into her gloved hands; she kisses him once, tasting grit and promise. Clem, hiding behind the sluice, sells the secret to Beresford for a ticket east. At dawn Beresford waits at the recorder’s office, fountain pen poised like a stiletto. Rhy, skirts hitched over pantaloons, gallops her mustang across yawning gulches, beats the noon stamp, files the claim in Steve’s name, and rides back through a plume of blasting dust that heralds the new smelter. The film ends on a frame of fire, stone, and two silhouettes welded against the sky.

Synopsis

Rhy MacGhesney and her two brothers, Clem and Sonnie, live with their father and their servant Maggie in a small boom mining town in Colorado. The boom has passed to the camps further on, leaving their little camp practically deserted. Rhy still has faith in the claim her father worked up to the time he was killed, some five years before, but her brother hates the life of the camp, and wants to sell for what they can get and go back to New York, where he feels he can have a chance to make something of himself. Their neighbor across the street is Lewis Beresford, whose obvious mission in the camp is one of pleasure, but who is in reality a mining expert, connected with big mining interests. He has ingratiated himself into the affection of the people of this little camp, and shows a great liking for Rhy and her brothers. Steve Towney, the former mine superintendent for "The Three of Us," is in love with Rhy and is jealous of Beresford, as he has been accepted as suitor for Rhy's hand, up to the time of Beresford's coming. Mr. and Mrs. Bix, Rhy's closest friends in the camp, give a Hallowe'en dinner, which is to be the biggest event of the year. On the day that the dinner is to be given, Steven strikes, by accident, mineral. This assures the success of the mine on which he holds an option, and which adjoins "The Three of Us." Overjoyed, he rushes to Rhy to tell the good news, informing her that it will be impossible for him to attend the Bix dinner, as his option expires the next day at noon. Rhy confesses her love for him, and asks him to wait until next morning. She will then go with him. He consents, giving her the option and samples of ore. Clem overhears the conversation. He is bribed by Beresford to reveal it. The latter thus has an opportunity to make an attempt to gain possession of the mine. He is at the recording office waiting to establish a claim the moment that the option to Towney's mine expires. But Rhy saves the mine and proves her loyalty to Steve by a thrilling ride over the mountains. This is shown in a series of exciting pictures. A great explosion for the breaking of ground for a smelter for the two successful mines ends the picture.