Summary
A dough-scarred veteran, Dale Garland, strides back from the Western Front’s cratered moonscapes into a Main Street bedecked with bunting that flaps like patriotic tongues; the town brass band blares Sousa marches while apple-cheeked kids wave tiny flags stitched by their mothers’ trembling hands. Yet beneath the bunting, Nebo Slayter—a political spider whose silk threads tighten every ballot box—whispers that this fresh-faced ex-doughboy can be groomed into an amiable marionette. The sheriff’s star, a tin-and-enamel bauble, is dangled before Dale like a hypnotist’s watch; the townsfolk cheer, unaware they are applauding their own future shackles. Opposing him stands John Millard, the stubborn incumbent whose badge has dulled from polishing against corruption; Millard’s refusal to trade favors has turned the county’s powerbrokers into vultures, and his only ally is a daughter, Alice, whose eyes carry the lucent gravity of prairie stars. Childhood romance rekindles in the hush of a hay-scented barn, but love’s ember is threatened when Alice witnesses Slayter’s hyenas gun down a moonshiner who dared to brew without paying the boss’s tithe. Her whispered testimony detonates Dale’s dormant moral fuse; he saddles his horse at dawn, rides through blue fog, and in a cedar-choked ravage trades lead with assassins whose shadows smear across the frost like spilled ink. By sunset the jailhouse is packed with grifters, grafters, and graverobbers of democracy, their wristwatch-gold clinking like sleigh bells as the iron door clangs. The badge, once costume jewelry, now burns with the auric gravity of truth; Alice’s hand slips into Dale’s, and the camera lingers on two silhouettes against a horizon that finally swells with unbought light.
Synopsis
Returning from service in the A. E. F., Dale Garland is given a rousing reception by his townsmen. County political boss Nebo Slayter persuades the community to nominate Dale for sheriff--thinking he can be easily manipulated--against John Millard, the incumbent, who refuses political compromises. Dale easily wins and pledges to give the citizens an honest deal. Millard's daughter, Alice, who is Dale's childhood sweetheart, learns of Slayter's dishonest schemes and sees his men murder a moonshiner for whom they had been furnishing protection. She informs Dale, who tracks down the slayers and arrests them after a battle. Meanwhile, the deputies arrest the slain man's accomplices, who implicate the political ring, and Dale jails them all. His honesty wins Alice's love.
