Selig Polyscope's stable of real-life professional cowboys got quite a workout in this one-reel melodrama. Dying of consumption, a frontier woman wills 2,000-dollars to her son and daughter, to be divided equally between them within a year of her death. Alas, the son falls in with a bad crowd, and soon has accumulated debts far exceeding his inheritance. Unable to wait out the allotted year, he breaks into the family lawyer's office and steals the entire 2,000-dollars. His father, a stagecoach driver, is informed of the theft; he administers a beating to his prodigal son, but soon thereafter forgives him. However, when the son and his cohorts repay the favor by holding up the old man's coach, it's just too much. Grimly, the stagecoach father arranges for the son to be whisked off to jail, despite the pitiful pleas of his daughter.
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
