Buster Gardner

A man searches for the villains who murdered his parents

The Rangers use airplanes to catch the bad guys in this Tom Mix Western filmed on location in Santa Cruz, California.

Tom heroically saves rancher's daughter Dorothy Dwan from both a raging river and a gang of cattle rustlers led by popular western villain Wallace McDonald.

Visiting his vast properties incognito, Hugh Nichols (Tom Mix) discovers that his land agent (Cyril Chadwick) is forcing Peggy Swain (Clara Bow) and her dad (Frank Beal) off their neighboring ranch. When decent-minded Nichols demands that the agent cease harassing the farmers, the nasty villain blows up the nearby dam, flooding the valley.

Tom meets his fate when a balloon goes sailing over the ranch: seeing a girl jump with a parachute, he rides to her rescue. Later, during the circus parade, he rides to her assistance, rescuing her from an elephant and thus arousing the ire of the circus manager, whose henchmen begin to chase Tom. Scrambling over the main tent, Tom falls onto the tightrope and lands in a net with the girl while the crowd wildly applauds. Kirk Mallory, who is jealous of Tom's attentions to Millie, frames Tom for a murder; he lands in jail but escapes and reaches Mallory's ranch in time to rescue the girl and administer a thrashing to the villain.

John Ford both directed and wrote the story (based on his published work The Hostage), a typical western romance in which Mix falls for the daughter of an imperiled rancher. This above-average Tom Mix western contains one of the star's more spectacular stunts -- a jump on horseback across the 20-foot Beale's Cut. Truth be told, the star, who frequently did his own stunt work, was forced to use a double this time