The Ranchman's Trust (1912)

• 84%
• 1912
• Western
• Gilbert M. Anderson
• Gilbert M. Anderson
• Arthur Mackley
• Fred Church

Jim Boulder, a ranchman, receives a letter one morning, from his old friend and chum, George Stapleton, a New Yorker, saying his son Elliott, is coming out to the ranch to pull himself together and to take good care of the boy, above all to keep liquor from him. Next day Elliott arrives and immediately falls in love with Boulder's pretty daughter, Sue. She returns his love and thus arouses the insane jealousy of Bill Dunham, the ranch foreman. A month passes and Bill, discovering that Elliott's weakness is drink, manages to smuggle a bottle of liquor into his room, thinking the young fellow will disgrace himself. Elliott finds the bottle, but resists the temptation and demands to know of Boulder who put it into the room. Boulder confronts Dunham, accuses him, and the foreman confesses. Boulder discharges him. Next afternoon Dunham finds Elliott and Sue together and attempts to kill the young easterner. However, the bullet lodges in the boy's shoulder, creating a painful but not dangerous wound. Sue has him carried into the house by the boys, then Dunham's gun is found on the spot and the boys start in pursuit of the cowardly ruffian. An hour later Durham is brought back at a lariat's end and Boulder is about to have him hanged when Elliott spares his life by declaring him too big a coward to die. Riding Dunham to the creek that marks the state line, the boys drive him across it at gun's point. Some weeks later Elliott and Sue are married in the little town church, and ride off down the trail amidst a shower of rice and old shoes thrown by the gay cowboys, while the hills re-echo the sound of their six-shooters popping in honor of the event.