The Painted Desert
Two cowboy friends, Jeff (J. Farrell MacDonald) and Cash (William Farnum), are traveling through the desert in the southwest U.S., when they come upon a baby who has been abandoned in the back of a covered wagon. They can't leave the defenseless child, so decide to take the baby with them, however, they argue over which of them would be better suited to raising the child. When Cash ends up prevailing in the debate, this creates a lifelong rift between the two friends.
Years later the baby has now grown into a young man, Bill Holbrook (William Boyd), who works with his adoptive father on their cattle ranch. Cash's erstwhile friend, Jeff, has remained in the area where the infant was found and has established his own ranch, centered on the water hole where the entire feud originally began, a feud which is still in full force. Jeff lives with his grown daughter, Mary Ellen (Helen Twelvetrees). The feud escalates when Cash wants to use the water hole on Jeff's property to water his cattle. Jeff is ready to confront Cash in a stand-off, preventing him from watering his cattle on the property Jeff has claimed, assisted by an itinerant cowboy, Rance Brett (Clark Gable), who has been smitten with Mary Ellen's beauty. The confrontation is temporarily avoided when Cash's herd unexpectedly stampedes.
When Bill discovers tungsten on Jeff's property, he attempts to use it to close the division between his father and Jeff, however this only results in his father kicking him out. He turns to Jeff, and begins a mining operation, which actually has the opposite effect of Bill's original intention, only exacerbating the tension between Jeff and Cash. Bill and Jeff's partnership also causes tension with Rance, since Mary Ellen now shows an interest in Bill. After a shipment of tungsten which was on its way to pay the loan they had taken out to develop the mine is waylaid, Bill works furiously with the miners to replace it with another load. He is successful. However, as he is celebrating the success of the mine, as well as his impending nuptials with Mary Ellen, the mine is sabotaged by a series of explosions.
Everyone believes the mine sabotage is the work of Cash, but it turns out to have been an act of jealousy on the part of Rance, who confesses, leaving the two old friends to reconcile, and their two children to marry.
romantic