The End of the Rainbow

Elihu Bennett represents the lumber monopoly and leads its fight to corral the standing timber in the Redwood forests of California. His daughter Ruth has, of her own desire, acquired a business education, including stenography. Her father objects to her working in his office, so she devotes her time to charitable purposes. One day she discovers a young man who has just separated two street fighters, being taken away with one of the fighters by a policeman. She intercedes and secures the young man's release. The man is Jerry Simpson, the son of one of the mountaineers who owns large and valuable tracts of timber which her father's business associates are trying to secure at an unreasonably low figure. Jerry, who has been studying law, goes to Bennett to make an appeal for justice. Ruth sees Jerry and at her request her father tells her who Jerry is and why he is in San Francisco. Jerry's mission is fruitless because Bennett decides to abide by the advice of Ferdinand Stocker, who represents the lumber monopoly in the Redwood forests. At her father's office, Ruth learns that Stocker needs a stenographer. This so interests Ruth that when a girl is selected from a number of applicants, Ruth prevails upon her, in return for money Ruth gives her, to surrender her credentials. Ruth goes to the lumber camp as the stenographer assuming Kitty Mitchell's name. It develops that Kitty Mitchell has deserted her children and husband, and this fact, being published in the San Francisco papers, comes to the eyes of Stocker. When Stocker makes advances to Ruth and is repulsed, he shows her the newspaper clipping and Ruth is silent. Ruth and Jerry become friends and he is her most enthusiastic assistant in establishing a library for the lumbermen. Bill Hardy is Stocker's foreman and Ruth learns that these two men are conspiring to rob her father by making false reports. Stocker determines to cut down "Old Sentinel," a famous landmark. The fact that the giant Redwood stands on Simpson's property does not alter Stocker's determination. Jerry tries to prevent by physical means the felling of the tree, but is unsuccessful. He is terribly beaten. Ruth has learned of the proposed raid upon Simpson's timber and goes to the scene in time to find Jerry lying almost insensible upon the ground. She revives him and gives him a revolver with which Jerry shoots and badly wounds Hardy, who is doing the work for Stocker. The next day inhabitants of the camp are mystified as to who shot Har