When a Man Rides Alone

A lone road agent climbs onto the back of the stage traveling from Cottonwood to Palomas, Arizona and instructs the driver to throw down the gold shipment from the Cottonwood Mine and not to look back. The agent then leaves a bag of gold at the home of Andy Blake with a note stating that it is the final payment for Blake's loss in the mine. At Palomas, Sheriff Ed Brady expresses no sympathy for the owner of the mine, Montana Slade, and tells his deputy that a few years ago, after newcomer Bill Harris got his friends to invest in the mine, Slade, Harris' partner, refused to pay the investors and provoked Harris to draw his gun against him; Slade then killed Harris, but it was ruled that he shot in self-defense. Realizing that the stage robberies began a few months back at the time that the Llano Kid arrived in town, the sheriff stations his deputy outside the Kid's room above the Palomas Bar, as another shipment is due that night, but the Kid robs the stage anyway and then delivers a bag of gold to another investor in the mine. In his room, the Kid's tally shows that all the investors now have been paid. In the Cottonwood saloon, miner Dad Davis accuses Slade of filling up his mine shaft because Slade knew he was about to strike the same vein on which the Cottonwood Mine is located. The Kid taunts Slade, who fights him, and Slade is knocked out. After he revives, Slade provokes Dad into drawing on him and shoots Dad, wounding him. After the Kid leaves money to hire someone to dig out the mine for Dad, he holds up the stage driver, this time to have a note delivered to Slade to warn him to leave Dad's mine alone. Dad's daughter Ruth, a blonde, twenty-three-year-old schoolteacher from the East, is riding the stage to visit her father. Thrilled to meet a real bandit, she disobeys the Kid's orders and turns around to look him in the face. The Kid prevents Ruth from continuing to town and gives her his horse, knowing that the horse will follow him to his cabin. After Ruth refuses to cook for him, the Kid prepares a meal. Learning her identity, he sends her to town even though she can identify him. Ruth, however, gives a phony description, and after a week passes, the Kid sneaks into town to thank her. When she says she cares about him, he kisses her. The Kid then runs into Slade and they fight. Slade and others chase the Kid out of town and Slade shoots him, but the Kid falls off his horse down a hill and then shoots and wounds Slade. The sheriff, who has determined that the Kid is really Bill Harris' son Tom, tells the Kid that now that he is half owner of the mine and that Slade will soon be leaving town, he better look for a new partner. The Kid asks Ruth, who says she will consider it, as he is a good cook, and they kiss.