Mark of the Spur

In the town of Sagebrush, Alice Beckett meets a train that carries the long lost wife and son, John, of her adopted father, rancher "Hardshell" Beckett. While Alice drives them from the station, Mrs. Beckett and John treat her like a servant, and when her car develops a flat tire, John refuses to fix it. The Kid, a cowboy, comes along to help, but Alice indignantly refuses his service, having run into him before when he presumptuously announced he was her father's new riding boss without having interviewed for the job. The Kid pulls John out of the car and forces him to change the tire. At the Beckett Ranch, the Kid finally asks Hardshell for the job, and Hardshell figures if the Kid can survive his first meeting with the ranch hands, he can have the position. Much to Hardshell and Alice's surprise, the Kid does best the ragtag group of ruffians, and his first assignment is to ship three hundred head of cattle. Later John insults Alice when he tells her he will split her father's inheritance with her if she will only like him the way she likes the Kid. John then chases Alice, but the Kid comes to her rescue and knocks some sense into him. The Kid's heroics vastly improve Alice's opinion of him, convincing her that she has cured him of his freshness. After the Kid delivers the herd of cattle, Hardshell puts $5,700 in his safe. John arranges with two ranch hands to steal the money and frame the Kid for the theft. Sheriff Ludlow arrives to arrest the Kid on the basis of a fuzzy picture on a wanted poster. When Hardshell goes to get the Kid's unpaid wages, John knocks him out and robs the safe. The Kid escapes, but a knife that he had confiscated from one of the ranch hands is found, and the crime is connected to him. When Alice notices the mark of a spur on her father's forearm, she realizes that the man who assaulted him and robbed the safe wore spurs, and that therefore the only possible suspect is John. She later overhears John and the two ranch hands plotting to kill Hardshell. Hoping to entrap him, Alice tells John that she would be more than partners with him if he would find the man who attacked her father. The Kid, who has sneaked in, overhears this and confronts her when she leaves John's room. She does not have time to explain her ruse before the Kid is captured by John and the ranch hands. They take the Kid to the sheriff, who instead arrests John and the ranch hands. Mrs. Beckett reveals that her real son died years earlier, and that John is actually the outlaw, Kid Lalor, who coerced her into letting him impersonate her son. After the sheriff shoots John when he tries to kill the Kid, the Kid, still the boss rider, kisses Alice.