In the drought-stricken Bunch Grass Valley of Montana, elderly rancher John Fann, known as "John the Baptist," runs the JHF ranch with his wife and two loyal cowboys, Bob Kern and Splinter Martin. For nearly a year, JHF cattle have been disappearing, and evidence points to Barr Wyeth, the man who eloped with the Fanns' daughter Nell against her parents' wishes. Wyeth rides a horse with a distinctive bar-shoe, a blotted JHF brand with a Lightning iron run over it has been found on a yearling, and a bone hondo bearing Wyeth's initials was discovered near a range branding fire. John Fann refuses to report the rustling to Sheriff Chet Gunning, wanting to protect Nell from scandal. However, the talkative Splinter inadvertently shares the evidence with Gunning, who rides out to press the matter. The JHF men deny everything to the sheriff's face. Meanwhile, a gossip named Pastry Pell spreads word to Wyeth that he is suspected of rustling. Wyeth, volatile and half-drunk, rides to town declaring he will kill both Gunning and John Fann. The sheriff disarms him at the saloon, but Wyeth hurls a whisky bottle at John Fann, nearly killing the old man, before fleeing. Separately, Buck Kelly, the saloon owner, agrees to give John Fann an eight-thousand-dollar mortgage on the JHF ranch so the old man can secretly pay off Wyeth's gambling debts and save the family. The sheriff, learning of this, hatches a plan with Kelly to intercept and take the money from John Fann on his way home, intending to return it to Kelly so the well-meaning but foolish gesture is thwarted. However, while waiting in ambush, the sheriff instead witnesses Wyeth riding past. Shortly after, a shot rings out, and Fann is found unconscious on the road, shot in the head, the eight thousand dollars gone. Bob and Splinter spot a rider leaving the scene from the canyon rim above. Suspicion falls on Wyeth, who was indeed in the area that morning. The sheriff, panicking because he himself was present and fears implication, flees the scene. Wyeth, believing he is already convicted and knowing he cannot prove his innocence, confronts the sheriff before an assembled crowd at the Fann ranch, accusing Gunning of the crime. He then dives through a window to escape. The sheriff opens fire outside, and Wyeth shoots back, killing Gunning. A stranger named Mellody arrives from Wyoming looking for the Ten-Bar-B ranch, an outfit whose foreman, known as Windy Smith, sold several hundred head of cattle cheaply across the state line. Nobody in Bunch Grass has heard of the Ten-Bar-B brand. Before Mellody can reveal much, he is shot in a poker game, apparently by a drunk Splinter, and jailed. Meanwhile, Doctor Knowles' office burns down, nearly killing Mellody inside. Bob Kern, newly deputized, pieces together the truth. Wyeth's bar-shod horse has been dead for a month, eliminating him as the rustler. The shell casing found at the ambush site is a forty-five caliber, not the forty-four Wyeth carries. The bullets extracted from the dead sheriff are also forty-fives. Splinter was too drunk to have shot Mellody deliberately, and a bullet hole in the floor under the poker table, along with a nick in Mellody's boot, indicate a different shooter fired from a concealed position, using Splinter's gun as cover. Bob realizes that the JHF brand, with simple modifications, becomes the Ten-Bar-B brand, explaining where the stolen cattle went. He also concludes that Buck Kelly masterminded the entire operation: Kelly used the simple-minded gossip Pastry Pell as his instrument to drive cattle across the state line and sell them cheap, while spreading lies between the Fann and Wyeth families to poison their relationships and weaken both ranches financially. Kelly's aim was to acquire the JHF cheaply. Pastry, not Wyeth, shot John Fann after overhearing the mortgage conversation, acting on his own initiative to help Kelly's scheme. Pastry set the fire to kill Mellody before he could identify him. Bob arrests Wyeth and brings him publicly into town on a busy Saturday, using the occasion to lay out his evidence before the assembled ranchers who are on the verge of lynching Wyeth. He exposes Kelly and Pastry Pell as the true criminals. Andy Allard shoots Pastry dead as he draws his weapon. Kelly is arrested. As he is taken away, Kelly confirms the account and surrenders Wyeth's notes and Fann's mortgage. The Fann and Wyeth families are reconciled. Nell, who had been told lies about Bob Kern and her own father for years, asks Bob's forgiveness. When asked why he risked everything for people who had scorned him, Bob deflects with humor, claiming he was simply too lazy to round up cattle and had nothing better to do.
By W. C. Tuttle · First published 1929 · Genre: Western, Mystery, Adventure