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Frequent director Robert Totten steps in front of the camera for the title role (some sources say he directed himself, but Vincent McEveety gets the credit). Cleavus, an old friend of Festus, has been dogged by poverty and hard luck all his life. He stumbles into a gold mine looking for help -- only to accidentally kill the miner. While driving the miner's corpse to a farm for burial, Cleavus finds $200 worth of gold dust -- a big chunk of money for 1873 -- in his clothing. This gives Cleavus an idea. In Dodge, he learns that the miner's claim hadn't been registered yet and falsely claims title to it himself. With his new money, he buys fancy store clothes and affects himself as a dandy. He even begins paying court to Kitty Russell. Festus finds out part of the truth about Cleavua and Kitty finds out the rest -- the mine actually held only the limited amount of gold and a lot of iron pyrite -- "fool's gold." Cleavus's luck goes downhill from there.