This film begins at the tail end of the Civil War with a Confederate officer by the name of "Colonel Lafe Harvey" (Earle Ross) arriving at a plantation to tell his niece "Betty Lee Harvey" (Frances Grant) that her father "General John Harvey" (William Welsh) had recently been killed in action. To make matters even worse, as she is being informed of this bad news an alarm is sounded that a guerilla militia is approaching with the intention of destroying everything in their path. Although both Betty Lee and Colonel Lafe Harvey manage to escape in the nick of time, the plantation is burned and looted leaving them with little recourse than to pack what few possessions they can find and head out west to make a new start. As luck would have it, a week or so later a Union officer by the name of "Captain Ted Thorne" (Bob Steele) arrives at the old plantation and with him is none other than General John Harvey who has been temporarily blinded in combat. Recognizing that his companion is in no shape to travel any further, Captain Thorne leaves General Harvey there to be taken care of and heads back to Washington D. C. as ordered. It's then that he is given an order by President Lincoln to head out west to prevent a telegraph line from being destroyed by Rebel sympathizers who are intent on recreating the Confederacy and using the current Indian territories as a buffer between them and the Union. What Captain Thorne doesn't realize, however, is that the guerillas who burned and looted the Harvey plantation are the same people intent on destroying the telegraph line and to that end they have joined the same wagon train transporting Colonel Lafe Harvey and Betty Lee. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this is a low-budget production made only a few years after sound was introduced in American filmography and as such the overall picture quality leaves much to be desired. Additionally, the script and the acting are somewhat lacking in that regard as well. It does, however, have a unique quality about it and if given some latitude might be of some interest to viewers who enjoy old films from this particular era. That said, while it definitely has it faults, I found it to be worth the time spent to watch it and for that reason I have cut it some slack and rated it accordingly. Average.
