[1] Set in Caldwell, Kansas on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, the film begins with intertitles describing the end of the reign of cowboys and cattle on the open range that would soon become farmland and homesteads.

And one of those tumbleweeds is their foreman Don Carver (William S. Hart), who respects the rattlesnakes and wolves that roam the prairie more than the land-grabbers who will soon be arriving.

The cattle are being gathered at the home ranch of the Box K, where Carver drops off a couple of orphaned wolf pups before heading south to get details on the coming land rush.

Cowhand Kentucky Rose (Lucien Littlefield) asks to accompany the foreman, and together they ride to the cow-town of Caldwell, population 200.

On the trail drive west, the Box K crew comes across other ranchers moving their herd off the Cherokee Strip—the Triple X outfit, the Circle Dot and the Diamond Bar.

After get soaked in a horse trough by the cowman, the bully meets an old buddy who now goes by the name Bill Freel (Richard Neill).

Meanwhile, Carver takes the round-up report to his boss, Joe Hinman (James Gordon), who treats him and Kentucky to some whisky in the local saloon.

Kentucky manages to find Mrs. Riley in the long line of registrants for settling permits, and he holds her baby for her while she signs in.

And Noll tries to persuade Molly to let Freel come courting, but she has no interest in the man, and she goes to meet Carver in the hotel's Ladies Parlor, where she receives a bouquet of prairie flowers to the cowboy along with an invitation to join him for the town's street celebration the next evening.

When Noll overhears Carver tell Hinman he's going out to the Strip one last time to look for Box K strays, the conniver gets Freel to report the cowman to Cavalry Major White (Taylor N. Duncan) as a Sooner.

Boss Hinson informs White that the cowboy was only acting on his orders to bring in strays, but because Carver had registered for the land rush, he was prohibited from setting foot on the Strip prior to the official opening.

All along the east edge of the Strip, wagons, horses and even bicycles are lined up for miles to take settlers to their new homesteads.

But not to be left out, the foreman's startled, riderless horse returns to the stockade, where Carver grabs a long staff and uses it to pole-vault the wall.

He says it is time to be drifting on, but replying that she and the kids will be lonesome, the widow snares his vest with her ringed finger and pulls him in for a smooch.

Fortunately, the location is in Carver's path and he comes to the rescue, disarming both men, tying them up and escorting them back to Caldwell to face military justice for the death of the cavalryman.

The Major, of course, knows a good man when he sees one and sends Carver over to the Caldwell House Hotel, where Molly has just returned the borrowed horse and carriage.

The script by prolific western screenwriter, Hal G. Evarts, is based on the historical Cherokee Strip land rush of 1893.

To give everyone a fair chance, a cannon shot was fired to signal the beginning of the land rush when registrants were allowed to enter the strip.

The New York Times reviewed the film in 1925 and wrote that Hart's performance emphasized "righteousness, his mental dexterity and physical prowess" in the role of Carver.

"[2] A 1926 review of Tumbleweeds in Photoplay Magazine says "Bill Hart returns to the screen in a story laid in the time when the Indian territory was turned over to the homesteaders.

The scene in which the prospective land owners, waiting for the cannon's boom which would send them racing in to stake their claims, furnished a brand new thrill...It is good entertainment.

Gary Johnson in Images Journal said that although Tumbleweeds was only a mild box-office success, it is arguably Hart's finest film.

[1] "All manners of vehicles -- covered wagons, surreys, stagecoaches, even a large-wheeled bicycle -- bounce over the prairie in the mad rush to claim land.

Other films would attempt to recreate the Oklahoma land rush -- such as Cimarron, which won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1931 -- but Tumbleweeds remains the best example.

[4] "Tumbleweeds stands up remarkably well, and most film devotees will find it among the more interesting and entertaining melodramas of the silent era", wrote Nesbitt.

It is as the breath of life to me ... the rush of the wind that cuts your face, the pounding hooves of the pursuing posse, and then the clouds of dust!

"[4]Hart retired to his ranch in Newhall, California and although producers continued to offer him roles in sound films, he refused to return to the screen.