Vallée de la mort

While working as a cow puncher, Jim Ward decides to cash out and buy from Duke a map to an old Indian mine at Twin Peak Mountain. After trekking there on foot, he meets the cantankerous Silas Bagley and his lovely daughter Joan, who work a mine as partners. Note: the bios of Nat Pendleton (Jim) and Helen Gilbert (Joan) are worth reading. They have a nearby cabin, an unexplained comfortable supply of food and water, and an older copy of the same map to an admittedly worthless mine. Nevertheless, Jim searches for the big gold strike and later accompanies Joan to San Francisco to find out that his ore samples are worthless. Joan's jointly held claim is sold for $5,000 in gold coins; she figures it is safe in Jim's hands. You just know that it will prove to be a fatal error and it is. Jim seeks to retrieve the gold coins and resume mining operations with their new friend Steve, a sailor with a small pet monkey. Finding more gold is a serious challenge to the relationship between Jim and Steve, and it ultimately determines Joan's future. Despite the sometimes garbled audio and choppy video of the YouTube version, I would suggest that it is worth viewing, just to see Pendleton and Gilbert.