The Dangling Noose

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Indian Jim is indicted by short shrift for a crime punishable by death, according to the code of the primeval. Watkins finds the bed of creek dry one morning, the water strangely having changed its course in a night. His options in that territory cover considerable land along the water right, but he has not the necessary money to cover the deal before its option expires. Bill is in love with Rose Watkins, and the deadly enemy of her friend and protector, Indian Jim, who looms up as having designs on the water rights. While Watkins was on a hopeless quest to borrow money, Bill was about to close the option, when he finds that his own money is missing. Circumstantial evidence points to Indian Jim as the thief, and the excitable mountaineers immediately convey him to a convenient tree. When confronted by the death penalty in the dangling noose, the stolid Aborigine confesses that he had taken the money, but refuses any further explanation. Bill, unsatisfied despite his enmity, seeks to prevent the Indian's execution, but is thrust aside. Rose, in a frenzy of alarm at the predicament of her friend, breaks into the dynamite house, and securing sticks of the explosive, tosses one over the cliff, to arouse the inhabitants of the settlement below. Another she uses to hold back the crowd until Watkins arrives and stays proceedings. The Indian then confesses that he had taken the money to save the option for Rose. Bill, in amazement declares that he raised the money for the same purpose, for Rose's sake. Then a very tense, dramatic situation changes into hilarious comedy as the crowd of would-be lynchers join in Watkins' hearty laugh. Indignant that her love affairs should provoke such merriment she will not pacified until Bill's arm steals about her and she defies the laughing crowd and leaves Indian Jim the hero of the occasion, instead of becoming the unfortunate victim of the sinister noose dangling above his head.