Fangs of Fate

Near the western town of Arcadia, bandits "Red" Mack and "Lew" Santog, tired of waiting for their leader, rustle a rancher's cattle and kill him while his wife and small child look on. News of the crime reaches Arcadia, where pompous Judge Harcourt and the overweight Dan "Dodo" Briggs decide that someone should be elected sheriff to deal with The Black Raiders, the offending gang. Azalia Bolton urges her sweetheart, ne'er-do-well Bob Haynes, to run opposite Dodo, but Bob merely laughs at the suggestion. Azalia storms off, and soon after, Dodo is elected sheriff. When Dodo makes his acceptance speech, however, some drunken toughs confront him, and Bob is angered when one of them roughly grabs Azalia's. After Bob bests the men in a fistfight, Dodo declares that "no one loves a fat man or respects him officially" and asks the lanky Bob to become his deputy. Bob laughs again, and soon after, a bewildered Azalia complains to her widowed mother, the owner of the Tucked Inn boardinghouse, about Bob's lack of ambition. Unknown to Azalia, Bob is the leader of The Black Raiders, and he thrashes Red for disobeying his orders not to commit any violence or steal from anyone who is not rich. Bob warns his men that he has been offered the job of deputy and will accept if they disobey him again. Later, at Mrs. Bolton's boardinghouse, while Bob ponders his life, Red convinces two gang members, John Jenkins and Peter Like, to help him rob a wagon carrying gold dust. The outlaws seriously wound one of the drivers, while the other escapes and alerts Dodo. Infuriated, Bob asks Dodo to swear him in as a deputy, much to the delight of Azalia. Wearing his badge, Bob tracks down Red and the others. Dodo and the posse arrive after Bob has subdued the bandits, but when they reach Arcadia, the townsfolk are horrified to hear Bob admit to Harcourt that he is the leader of The Black Raiders. Dodo reluctantly arrests Bob, and later, in court, Harcourt sentences Red to be hanged. After the judge sentences Jenkins and Like to ten years of hard labor, the nervous citizens await Bob's sentencing. Although he has never committed or encouraged murder, Bob confesses to robbery, and Harcourt is forced to sentence him to ten years of hard labor. Azalia rushes to Bob's side and pleads for leniency, and the judge, citing Bob's service to the community, suspends the sentence. Harcourt then remands Bob to Azalia's custody for life, and a jubilant Dodo and Mrs. Bolton request a similar sentence.