"The Ruse" is an offbeat two-reel vehicle for silent era Western star William S. Hart. It begins typically enough as a Western, with Hart as a "reformed gun fighter" (so no good badman and his regeneration plot). Hart, however, goes to Chicago to sell his ore field, where the buyers are bent on swindling him. Hart falls in love with the secretary for the main villain. She discovers the villains' scheme, so they hold her captive. The short film has switched from the Western to the genre of underworld crime and gangsters. The abduction of the woman or child is one of the most generic plot twists of the latter genre, seen in such other available early crime flicks--to give but a few examples--as "Regeneration" (1915), "Traffic in Souls" (1913), or the even older "The Black Hand" (1906).
As fellow commenter wmorrow59 remarked, the villains in this film are, unfortunately, incompetent. To steal Hart's money, they lure him into a poker game, where they get caught cheating. To make matters worse, the game is held in the same building where the secretary is imprisoned. It's convenient to conclude the fast-paced two-reeler with an exciting climactic fight, but disappoints by reducing the criminals to being inexplicably stupid. Otherwise, it's a passably entertaining short, from early in Hart's oeuvre.