by Hans J. Wollstein
synopsis
A confusing Universal silent Western, this film starred one of the studio's lesser cowboy heroes, Ted Wells, as a U.S. Marshal falsely accused of being a notorious outlaw. The real bandit, known only as The Hawk (and weren't they all?), is actual a tough hombre masquerading as rancher Steve Banning (Henry Hebert). About to be unmasked, the desperado kidnaps Jane Brooks (Peggy O'Day), a pretty detective disguised as a bespectacled professor, but Wells and his men manage to rescue the girl before she suffers the ubiquitous fate worse than death. The film's editor, Ben Pivar, presumably remembered the name "Steve Banning" when he later produced The Mummy's Hand (1940), whose hero (played by Dick Foran) sported the same name.
