Secret Valley

Jean Carlo sneaks out of a fashionable New York hotel and leaves the city by train. She arrives in Reno, Nevada, where she confers with a lawyer, Austin B. Martin, about getting a divorce. She explains that she left her husband two hours after they had married when she learned that he is really the notorious racketeer Nick Collins. Martin abruptly refuses to represent her, and after she leaves his office, he sends a telegram to Collins. Meanwhile, attorney James L. Parker agrees to take Jean's case and recommends that during the six weeks needed to establish residence in the state for a divorce, she hide out at the ranch of his friend, Lee Rogers. Lee, who runs a real ranch, not a dude ranch, does not want boarders, but when he meets Jean, he becomes tongue-tied and allows her to stay. After Collins arrives in town with two mugs and learns from Martin that Jean has disappeared, Martin visits Lee to collect a $10,000 note, which Lee's deceased father had signed. In the midst of their conversation, Jean repeatedly whistles for Lee to bring her water. When he doesn't respond, she comes out of her room and overhears Martin give Lee a week to raise the money. Lee decides to round up the cattle to sell, even though they won't bring top prices. Angry at the minor disruptions that Jean's presence has caused, Lee refuses to allow her to go to the roundup, but she hides in the cook's wagon. Meanwhile, Martin, learning that Jean wrote a check to Parker and realizing that Parker is Lee's friend, deduces that the person he heard whistling was Jean. He and Collins go to the ranch and after finding Jean's clothes, ride to the roundup, despite Collins' discomfort at riding a horse. After Lee discovers that Jean is a "stowaway," he orders her to wash dishes, but he is later pleasantly impressed that she can take the hard life. When Jean sees Martin and Collins approach, she hides in a wagon. Lee sees this and then, after Collins wipes his shoes with laundry from a clothesline, orders him to get out. Aware of the other armed men in the camp, Collins backs off. Lee then sees that Collins and Martin used his horses to get to the camp and makes them walk all the way back to Martin's car. Jean cries when Lee asks if she is in trouble, and he squeezes her hand in sympathy. That night, Jean sits with Lee by the campfire as the cowboys sing, and after they say goodnight, she sees a sick calf bleating for its mother, who is herded with the other cattle. Jean opens the gate to allow the calf in, but instead, all the cattle escape, and Jean hurts her leg in a fall. Lee begins to berate her, then seeing that she is hurt, he apologizes, whereupon she hugs him. In the morning, Lee learns that Jean has ridden back to the ranch alone. While he rides back to her, Jean meets with Parker and writes a check to save Lee's ranch with the instruction that Lee is not to know that she wrote it. Collins and his mugs arrive at the ranch and shoot Lee's pal Paddy, after which Collins orders Jean to pack, but she refuses. Meanwhile, FBI men, with evidence to arrest Collins on income tax evasion, interrogate Martin. When Lee arrives at the ranch, Jean, afraid that Collins will kill him, agrees to go with Collins and tells Lee that she and her husband only had a misunderstanding. Suspecting that she is lying, Lee gets into a fight with Collins, who hits him over the head with his gun. Jean runs to Lee, but Collins takes her to his car. As Lee then fights Collins' mugs, the FBI men approach. After he sees Jean struggle with Collins from the window, Lee pretends that he is hit when Collins shoots at him, but then jumps into Collins car and fights him. Collins tries to run, but the FBI men shoot him in the back, after which Jean hugs Lee. The cattle are rounded up, and the cowboys laugh as Jean and Lee embrace in the window of the moving train and then pull down the shade.