Billy Cummings

A man waits on death row while his son and friend try to prove that he did not kill a grocer with an ax.

An interesting entry in Republic Pictures' long-running "Red Ryder" B-Western series, this film is not about hardy settlers braving the Colorado winters, as the title would suggest. Instead it's a sort of Reform School Western about a couple of wayward Chicago boys (Billy Cummings and Freddie Chapman) taken in by Ryder's indomitable aunt, "The Duchess" (Alice Fleming.) The boys escaped their very own "Fagin," Bull Reagan (Roy Barcroft), and were given a second chance on the lady's Western ranch. Unfortunately, Reagan returns to do a bit of cattle rustling, once again luring the boys into becoming his accomplices.

Red Ryder battles an unscrupulous fur thief named Hunter for the right to trap beaver and otter on the land of Chief Running Fox.