Eugene Manlove Rhodes

Cowboy Ross McEwen arrives in town. He asks the banker for a loan of $2000. When the banker asks about securing a loan that large, McEwen shows him his six-gun collateral. The banker hands over the money in exchange for an I.O.U., signed "Jefferson Davis". McEwen rides out of town and catches a train, but not before being bitten by a rattler. On the train, a nurse, Miss Hollister, tends to his wound. A posse searches the train, but McEwen manages to escape notice. However a mysterious Mexican has taken note of the cowboy, and that loudmouthed brat is still nosing around. Who will be the first to claim the reward for the robber's capture?

Dick Rainboldt (Carey) signs up to work at a gold mine without realizing that he's being hired as a strikebreaker. He takes the job primarily because of a pretty girl who lives in the town. The superintendent and manager of the mine convince Rainboldt to blow up the mine and make it appear like the strikers did it. But Rainboldt turns the tables on the plotters and reveals their scheme. The mine owner rewards him with a big assignment and the girl promises to marry him.

J. Wesley Pringle and S. S. Thorpe are running against each other for sheriff. Unscrupulous Thorpe has his gang kidnap Pringle to prevent his win but Georgie Hibler, the daughter of Pringle's biggest supporter and her good friend, Fite, whom Pringle had saved from suicide, team up to saves him from the gang. Pringle wins the election and the girl!

The Desire of the Moth is a 1917 American silent western film directed by Rupert Julian

John Wesley Pringle, adventurer at large, returns home after making his strike and finds his old girl friend, Stella, engaged to Christopher Foy, who is running for sheriff. Pringle foils an attempt by incumbent sheriff Matt Lisner to kill Foy, but when Foy is accused of a murder, Pringle, in a clever ruse, captures Foy, holds the posse at gunpoint, and then releases him, explaining his motive.

The rancher Jeff Bransford returns to his ancestral acres and finds them heavily mortgaged and about to be foreclosed and is defended by hired men with guns.