Starring Blanche Sweet, Mahlon Hamilton, Frank Lanning, Edward Peil Sr.
Charles Edler
Directed by Robert Thornby

Print: black/white
Runtime: 54 min.
Genre: western
Print Quality: B

Based on a 1901 novel by Marah Ellis Ryan, this silent Western starred
Blanche Sweet in the title-role of Montana Rivers, whose cardsharp
father, Lee Holly (Edward Peil, Sr.), raised her as a tomboy. When the
gambler is kicked out of town, Montana seeks shelter with the Indians, by
whom she is taught womanly ways and assumes the name Tana. She falls
in love with handsome but married prospector Dan Overton (Mahlon
Hamilton) but an acquaintance of Overton's, the villainous Jim Harris
(Frank Lanning), recognizes her as Lee Holly's brat. The girl is denounced
by both Harris and the jealous Mrs. Overton (Claire Du Brey), but events
take a new turn when Lee Holly reappears, revealing that Montana is not
his child at all but the offspring of Harris. Holly is killed by the enraged
Harris, and the unfaithful Mrs. Overton suffers the same fate in the hands
of a jealous lover (Jack Roseleigh), leaving Overton and Montana to plan
a future together. A major star of the early silent screen, Sweet was
suffering something of a career-slump when she appeared in this
romantic clap-trap produced by Jesse D. Hampton. Hamilton is perhaps
best remembered as Mary Pickford's benefactor Jarvis Pendleton in
Daddy-Long-Legs (1919).