The Gauntlet (1920)

Roderick Beverly travels to Tennessee to look into why a large syndicate has taken a sudden interest in some property owned by his father. There he meets Nessy Worthing, the daughter of a prominent local family who has returned home after a six-year stay in boarding school. He falls for her, but the local moonshiners look at him with suspicion, and when one of them is killed, Rod is arrested and jailed for the murder, although he didn't do it. A lynching party soon gathers outside the jail and plans to take Rod and string him up. Nessy finds that in order to save his life, she has to do something she hadn't planned on doing.