A gentile sage rider is about to be whipped by the Mormons to coerce the rich and beautiful Jane Withersteen to marry against her will. In desperation Jane whispers a prayer 'Whence cometh my help!' Just then an unlikely hero the infamous gunfighter Lassiter routs the persecutors and is drawn into this conflict on the Utah-Arizona border.<br><br><br><br>The mysterious loner hires on at Jane's ranch. Through battles with gun-slinging cattle rustlers cutthroats and the calculating Mormons Lassiter unveils his tale of an endless search for a woman who was abducted long ago.<br><br><br><br>Judged by critics to be Zane Grey's best novel <I>Riders of the Purple Sage</I> changed the Western genre when it was first published in 1912. This novel shows the gritty as well as the gallant in a more candid portrayal of the West than any that had come before it.