Fade Away Foster (1926)

Dirtyshirt Jones, contending against Magpie Simpkins for the favor of Susie Harper, the town beauty, wins the girl and rides away. A moment later the sheriff and his posse, looking for the notorious outlaw Fade Away Foster, are directed by the jilted suitor in the wake of Dirtyshirt. "There he goes" says Magpie, "he just kidnapped Susie Harper." They overtake Dirtyshirt and knock him from his horse before they recognize him. By this time Magpie is off with the girl. The hiding place of Fade Away is located and the sheriff asks for a man of courage to step forth from the ranks who has the nerve to go in and get the outlaw. Magpie slaps the flank of Dirtyshirt's horse; the animal carries him forward and he is acclaimed a hero. The sheriff tells him that the outlaw has a strawberry mark on his shoulder. Dirtyshirt goes in and gets into a tussle with a bear instead of an outlaw. He emerges alive but empty handed. He and Magpie ride to town, where Professor Rosebud is giving lessons in nature dancing to the girls. The prof gets a pretty strawberry ornament from one of the girls, which he sticks to his shoulder with court plaster. They get the two cowboys to play the parts of the wolf and the woodman in an interpretive dance of Little Red Riding Hood, Magpie sees, under prof's tunic, the strawberry mark, and accuses him of being Fade Away Foster. The prof flees on horseback, pursued by the two cowboys; the posse following. The fugitive dives from the horse into a clump of bushes where the real Fade Away is hiding. The four are at grips when the sheriff comes up and separates them, picking out his man and paying the reward to the two cowpunchers who are still trying to arrest the harmless prof.