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In chapter one of Republic Pictures' first western serial, Don Loring (Robert Livingston) learns that power mad empire builder Jason Burr (Fred Kohler) has made a bargain with Imperial Russian Emissary Ivan Raspinoff (Robert Warwick) to declare himself czar of California. Burr, who has discovered gold at the Northern California hacienda belonging to Don's father (Henry Hall) and younger brother (John O'Brien), has his henchmen murder both Lorings and kidnap mining engineer John Colton (Lloyd Ingraham) and his daughter Doris (Kay Hughes). Don, who along with sidekicks Salvation (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) and Whipsaw (Raymond Hatton), is returning from a trailblazing expedition under the leadership of John Charles Fremont (Ray Corrigan), hastens to join his friend Father José (William Farnum), with whom he concocts a plan to seek vengeance disguised as a masked mystery man known as "The Eagle." Using trickery, our hero gains entry to Burr's lair in Santa Rosalia but is discovered and chased up into a bell tower. As chapter one concludes, Don loses his grip of the steeple and plunges to what appears to be certain death.