El Paso

Charleston lawyer, Clay Fletcher, at the end of the Civil War goes to El Paso on a business mission and also to renew an old romance with Susan Jeffers who has moved there with her father, Judge Jeffers. He finds the Judge to be a confirmed drunkard and tool of the town’s hench-man, Sheriff La Farge. Susan’s loyalty to her father keeps Clay in town involves him in an attempt to fight by legal means the trumped-up trials and lawless land-grabbings that have terrorized the townspeople. When legal means fail, he learns to out-shoot and out-kill his enemies, rounding up his own vengeful group to rout the Donne-La Farge forces. Hangings and killings increase, the Judge and Clay’s aged grandfather are victimized, and Susan, revolted, turns against him. After the climatic battle between the two forces, in an inspiring finale Clay is bought to the realization that he must return to the due processes of law and order or there will never be an end to the killing.