Summary
A taciturn drifter named Red Kane rides into a sun-creased frontier town where the dust seems to whisper secrets; the locals eye Ben Lorimer and his book-reading daughter Dot as if they carry plague, yet Red’s lariat-quick decency—he plucks the girl from a runaway wagon—melts her distrust and unearths Lorimer’s buried identity: a Colorado banker framed for robbery by unseen wire-pullers. When the sheriff’s posse sniffs blood, Red absorbs a bullet meant for the family, collapses in Dot’s trembling care, and becomes the target of Spunk Lemm’s poisoned gossip that a real man never hides behind calico. A moonlit saloon brawl erupts, fists like pistons, chairs like shrapnel; Red, believing he has killed Lemm, flees to the granite hills where guilt gnaws at him like a coyote at bones. There he stumbles upon the actual express-office thieves, wrings a candle-lit confession that exonerates Lorimer, and gallops back to town in time to silence both the noose and the wagging tongues. With justice restored and his name scrubbed clean, Red no longer needs the horizon; he claims Dot’s hand while the first shy rain of spring freckles the parched street, the camera tilting up to a sky suddenly wide enough for second chances.
Synopsis
Ben Lorimer and his daughter, Dot, are received with suspicion in a western town; when "Red" Kane rescues Dot, however, he wins her confidence and learns that Lorimer has adopted a new name and is wanted for a crime in Colorado for which he is not guilty. Trying to protect them from the sheriff and his posse, Red is wounded, but Dot nurses him. "Spunk" Lemm circulates rumors that Red is hiding behind a woman's skirts; Red engages in a fight with Spunk and, thinking he has killed him, returns to the hills; there he discovers the men who robbed the express office and gets a confession that clears Lorimer of the crime in Colorado. After resolving his difficulties, Red claims Dot as his future wife.
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