by Hans J. Wollstein
synopsis
Based on Joseph Bushnell Ames' Shoe Bar Stratton (published that same year), this average Tom Mix Western starred the decade's number one cowboy hero as Bob Stratton, a young veteran who returns from the war to find his ancestral ranch in the hands of Mary Thorne (Lillian Rich). Thorne is the daughter of a usurper, now deceased, who had appropriated the ranch under the false notion that Stratton had died. After several skirmishes with a couple of shadowy figures, Stratton solves the ownership dilemma by simply marrying the girl. Catch My Smoke was helmed by William Beaudine, a veteran director whose fast-paced and somewhat slipshod methods would earn him the not entirely laudatory nickname "One-Shot."
