United States

Film adaptation of Bret Harte's real-life tale of gold fever in the pioneering West, with Robert Hays as Bret Harte and John Dehner as Captain Sutter, the who gives Harte a job in his sawmill. Sutter dreams of building a town where peace and goodwill prevail. But his hopes look like being dashed when gold is suddenly discovered in a stream near the sawmill, and fortune hunters descend on the town. Soon the place is being terrorised, and Bret Harte sets out to confront the bandits who are making the trouble. He succeeds, but only after an action-packed gunfight that is the stunning climax to the film.