Riders of the Whistling Pines

Riders of the Whistling Pines is a 1949 American Western film directed by John English and starring Gene Autry, Patricia Barry, and Jimmy Lloyd. Written by Jack Townley, the film is about a gang of outlaws who are destroying the timberland and who frame a singing cowboy on a cattlepoisoning charge, setting him up for murder.

At the inquest, Gene is cleared of any charges, and he is freed. He sells his interest in his forest camp, leaving the money to Carters daughter, Helen Patricia Barry. In grief, he decides to leave the area, but then discovers the moth infestation for himself. Reporting it to the forest service and discovering that his shot could not have killed Carter, he is hired to run a program of aerial spraying of DDT to kill the moth larva before the forest is destroyed. Gene includes his pal, Joe, in the aerial program, but Joes problems with alcohol, triggered by the death of his wife, lead to trouble.Meanwhile, Mitchell has hatched a plot to stop the DDT spraying by covertly spraying a very potent poison over the local livestock, blaming the resulting sickness and death on the DDT. Joe, who has returned to sobriety with the help of Autry, finds the plane and poison being used by Mitchell, but is shot by one of Mitchells henchmen, Bill Wright Damian OFlynn, as he rides to report the problem. Helen finds Joe and, with the help of Dr. Chadwick Harry Cheshire, brings him back from the brink of death. When Joe recovers consciousness, he reports his findings to Gene. ........

Source: Wikipedia