Jack Cooper and Ben Williams find that smuggling jewelry across the Mexican border is a profitable business. They are accumulating money at their nefarious trade, when one morning a little incident changes the whole tenure of Jack's life. He is riding along the trail when he finds a girl whose skirts are tangled in a barbed wire fence. He goes to her assistance and succeeds in freeing her, for which she thanks him and hurries away. After she is gone, he finds a piece of lace clinging to the fence, and removing it, he places it in his pocket. Jack resolves to see the lady again, and rides up the trail. He finds her and is invited to meet her mother. This visit is followed by others, until he is deeply in love with Ethel Volmer. He tells his partner he is through with smuggling for good, and Bill is deeply disappointed. Bill takes to drinking and gambling, and loses all his money, as well as Jack's. Jack has won the love of Ethel and plans to buy an interest in the ranch; when he comes home to claim his share of the money he learns that Bill has lost it all in gambling. He is keenly disappointed, but plans to make one more haul. He is detected by a ranger, who summons a posse and starts on his trail. In his extremity he rides to his partner and tells him of what has happened. Bill sees also a chance to vindicate himself with Jack. Taking the sack of smuggled jewels he rides out on the Bad Lands and fires his gun to attract the attention of the ranger and this posse. He is pursued and shot. Dying, he sees a vision of Jack and Ethel, happy in their love, and he knows that his sacrifice has not been in vain. -Moving Picture World, September 1, 1911, p. 646.
May also be referred to "The Smuggler and the Girl."