Here is William S. Hart, brightest star of the early western screen, in the film he thought his best. As a 1920 reviewer wrote, “He represents the combined daring and cunning of the American fighting male. He not only looks the part, but he acts it with keen intelligence. There constantly shines in his eyes the combined pugnacity and caution of the true gunman of the West.” Hart plays Black Deering, an outlaw who, in his own words, “ain’t never been any good.” He and his gang are ambushed during a daring train robbery, and he later learns his betrayer was one of his own men: Jordan, who used his blood money to buy a frontier parlor of gambling and prostitution. Escaping from the law, Deering flees into the wilderness and finds shelter in the home of an abandoned woman (Anna Q. Nilsson) and her young son.