The Desperado

A lost film. As described in a film magazine Exhibitors Herald on March 16, 1918: "a forest ranger known only as Headin' South (Fairbanks) goes forth in search of Spanish Joe (Campeau), a Mexican responsible for most of the treachery and outlawry along the U.S.-Mexican boarder. Headin' South gains quite a reputation as he goes along and finally believes himself worthy of joining Joe's band. in a whirlwind finish in which Joe is captured, Headin' South meets one of Joe's near victims (MacDonald) and falls in love with her."

Dave Collins is a young man who is bequeathed a ranch on the condition that he marry the late owner's granddaughter Lucille. But when he arrives at the ranch with young sidekick Spuds in tow, Dave finds that a distant relative of Lucille's, Ray Foster, has taken his place. Foster hires tough Bart Haywood to kill his rival, and soon our hero is hogtied to a handcar in the path of an approaching train.

Dean Randall is a hero of the Great War who comes home to his horse and his father's ranch. When back he saves a family in a wagon train -- a father, daughter Grace, and three orphan children.

A cowboy sets out to help a pretty young girl who is about to lose her ranch when crooks plan to foreclose on it because she doesn't have enough money to make her mortgage payment. He puts together a cattle drive in order to sell the herd to raise the money to pay off the note, but when the crooks hear about this, they make plans to stampede the herd along the way.

Evil Red Sampson and his band of rustlers shoot up Mineral Point, the ranch of William Conway, owner of a gold mine. Shot and dying, Conway reveals the location of his mine at Boulder Creek in a note.

Ruth Burroughs the daughter of a beleaguered rancher whose valuable property is threatened by a greedy railroad company

A drifter befriends wounded outlaw Lafe Wells. Having promised to deliver a sack of gold to the man's family, Wales promptly falls for the daughter of the house.

A timid bank clerk has to toughen up during the search for a gang of bank robbers.

Lightnin' Bill Williams, the owner of a 50,000-acre ranch near the town of Cactusville, takes a fall off a cliff, and the experience affects him to the extent that he has lost his nerve. Oil promoter Dan Carson and geologist Lional Murphy find large oil deposits under Bill's ranch, and decide to swindle him out of them. Complications ensue.

An outlaw with a Heart of Gold sacrificing his own life for the happiness of two young people in love.

Cal Roberts can ride anything with four legs. He enters the contests held at big rodeo. He wins all honors and meets a girl who races horses to help her father clear pressing debts. Complications follow, but Cal wins the girl.

Curley Smith, a lieutenant of the Texas Rangers, gets chased by a band of smugglers after getting caught spying on them and becomes injured. Anita, the daughter of the chief smuggler tends to him and the two of them fall in love. Dean, a member of the renegade, becomes jealous of their romance, and will do whatever he can to get rid of Curley - fair or foul.

Jack Pepper accidentally fires his gun while forcing a newspaper editor to retract his statement regarding Miss Tulip Hellier, and the sheriff goes after Jack. While hiding out, Jack finds a liquor cache on the Hellier ranch and knows it was placed there as a ruse to distract the sheriff while an outlaw gang runs dope across the border.

Braggs, the young western settler, comes into view leading his broncho while he leads his little child on the horse's back. Placing the child on the ground and watering the pony, he takes his knife from his pocket to make an extra hole in the saddle strap. The knife slips and penetrates his wrist, severing an artery. His wife comes to his assistance, makes a tourniquet with strips of her apron, jumps on the broncho's back, bids her husband to care for the child and keep up courage while she rides to town for the doctor.

Full of booze, bluster, and fight "Black Pete," a big "bad man" of the wild west comes from the local saloon ready to put daylight through anybody and everybody within the range of his voice and the reach of his gun and, to further convince the crowd that he is the terror of the territory, lands on an inoffensive bystander knocking him down. "Billy" is an entirely different sort of a citizen; he is a young chap living with his sister whom he loves very dearly; their love is mutual. Billy has received a letter and stops on his way home in an opening in the woods to read it. While thus engaged, an Indian girl is making her way through the woods. "Black Pete" coming along the pass sees and attacks her. Billy springs to her defense and knocks "Pete" down; in falling he strikes his head on a stone and is killed.

Nora, who is the president of the Bachelor's Club, receives a letter announcing the death of her uncle in the west and that he has made her heir to his immense fortune. Including a ranch at Grey Oaks. Nora decides to go west and take charge of the ranch and run it herself a la suffragette fashion. She invites all the girls to go with her and they start for their new home. Arriving at Grey Oaks they pay no attention to the cowboys who greet them at the station but go at once in the old stage-coach to the ranch. The cowboys follow, approach the ranch, offer their services and are rewarded by being driven from the premises. The boys make up their minds to "get next" to the girls and devise a scheme.

Denton, a young easterner, arrives in the gold-fields, looks about for a "find" and a partner. Entering a saloon, he partakes of some refreshment, watches the patrons of the place and studies their characters, while thus engaged a young miner, named Harper, somewhat prejudiced against easterners, engages in a quarrel with a Mexican who is about to plunge a knife into the miner when Denton seizes his wrist and wrenches the weapon from his grasp. Harper thanks Denton, and after learning the eastern man's desire to find a prospecting partner, Denton loins forces with him and they start in to work a lead and strike paying dirt.

A short silent film produced by Gaston Mèliès in San Antonio.

A band of desperadoes employed as cow punchers take advantage of an ordinance prohibiting the carrying of firearms to hold up the owner and escape with the payroll. The new foreman Jack trails them and in a running fight unhorses them, one by one. He fights with the leader of the outlaws but subdues him and wins the girl.

Fleeced by a pair of good-time gals, the boys are unable to pay their bar tab and end up cooling their heels in jail. Once released, the two pals decide to join the army, if only to know where their next meal is coming from. They are shipped to a remote frontier outpost, which is already a hotbed of intrigue due to the commanding officer's lust for the wife of one of his officers.