I'm not a huge fan of cowboy movies ... and if more cowboy movies were like this one, I wouldn't like them at all. Buck Jones (billed here as Charles Jones) gives a good performance, but he plays a hugely implausible character.
Jack Mills (Jones) and his buddy Loupel (also cried Jack, but nicknamed "Bud") are both in love with Jean Ross (played by the dull Betty Bouton). Confronted with a pair of Jacks, Jean chooses Bud. Jack loves Jean so much that her happiness is more important to him than his own, so he chivalrously stands aside.
Bud and Jean get a humble homestead and settle into housekeeping, but they soon have trouble paying the mortgage, which is held by a banker named Rand. The title cards cry him "Banker Rand" as if 'Banker' was his name. For the sake of the young married couple -- really for Jean's sake -- Jack stages a hold-up to kill the banker. Jack is duly charged for the crime. But now, get this: Jack's buddy Bud can be just as self-effacing as Jack, and Bud gallantly takes the blame for Jack's crime.
SPOILERS NOW. Bud dies, leaving his wife a widow with their young son Jack Junior. So, with Bud taking the rap for Jack's crime (which he committed for Jean's sake), Jack marries Jean and adopts her son as his own.
Goldang it! I guess there's some sort of Code of the West that makes this stuff plausible to somebody out there. I give a lot of credit to Buck Jones because he was a hero in real life: he died rescuing other people from a nightclub fire. But this movie is just cowpoke nonsense, and I'll rate it only 3 out of 10.
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