Summary
A pallid newcomer in high-collar serge, Chauncey Day, drifts into Rawhide—a sun-bleached crucible where whiskey, quartz, and lies are the only currencies. Beneath the blistered timbers of the land office, Jackson Grade, dapper as a rattlesnake in Sunday silk, rewrites topography itself, forging claims the way fallen angels forge signatures. Brand’s lode, a seam of auriferous prophecy, becomes the bait for a $95,000 sleight-of-hand; when the miner spits on the paltry $5,000 offer, Grade stages his own assassination, a lurid theater of blood and perjury meant to hang Brand from the nearest cottonwood. Into this venal rodeo thunders the White Rider—moonlit albino stallion, cloak like a comet’s tail, voice of canyon echo—bearing ledgers that sing of perfidy. By the time the smoke clears, the timid tenderfoot has doffed his disguise, the villain’s empire lies in tinder, and Jewel Brand’s eyes hold the glint of both gold and dawn.
Synopsis
Tenderfoot Chauncey Day arrives in the small Southwestern boom town of Rawhide where Jackson Grade, the recorder of deeds, is accumulating his own fortune through falsifying documents. Authorized to offer miner Joel Brand $100,000 for his claim, Grade attempts to pocket $95,000 by bidding only $5,000. When Brand refuses the offer, Grade attempts extortion by faking his own murder at Brand's hands. Then Grade's accomplice Marsh threatens to have Brand arrested until the White Rider appears with proof of Grade's infamy, thus exposing the crooks. Justice served, the Rider reveals himself to be Tenderfoot Chauncey Day and wins the heart of Brand's daughter Jewel.
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