Let's be realistic.

An Exercise In Nonsense

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

A Selig Western drama which has all the go for which these dramas have become popular and which is reproduced with fidelity to the life and environment depicted. The scene where the mother is forced to leave the little one behind is almost too realistic, and when the camp is informed of the circumstance the audience responds to the miners' attempts to straighten out the tangle. Then when the mother mounts her pony and starts back, with her cruel husband in hot pursuit, the audience holds its breath as it watches the race. What was done to the husband is agreed to be no more than he deserved, but, fortunately, the audience is spared the actual scene, which is as it should be. The imagination in most individuals is powerful enough to appreciate what is done under such circumstances without having the scene enacted before them. And the end is happy. Withal it is a satisfactory picture, having ample life and animation to satisfy the most exacting individual. - The Moving Picture World, July 10, 1909