Acting
This 15 chapter serial is considered to be "the last of the adult serials". Produced in Wilkes-Barre, PA., it has crisp editing, fast action, and carefully lit and composed interiors and lush pictorial exteriors. This is a serial of great complexity with the director, the photographer and title-maker always in absolute control. The extraordinary rhythmic momentum of the film is never lost despite the films complex plot turns. This is the best of the surviving serials from the silent era.
Heads of rival lumber camps meet in a fight. Louis Lenoir, a renegade French Canadian, causes the death of "Big" MacDonald, a hard-fighting Scotsman whose life is guided by his dogmatic religious beliefs. His son, Ranald, is left to settle the blood feud. In spite of the pleas of his sweetheart, the daughter of a minister, he participates in a gang fight on the logs in mid-river just as a log drive to Ottawa begins.
Henry Everett is confined to an insane asylum when he refuses to sacrifice his invention to a powerful rubber trust. Richard Trevor, the son of trust magnate Silas Trevor, becomes involved with Henry and his sister Edith, when he mistakenly picks up a baggage claim check meant for the detective Edith has hired to help her brother. After a series of daring adventures, Richard, acting as the detective, secures freedom and financial recompense for Henry, and the affections of Edith for himself.
Phil Kelly, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, serves as an American spy during World War I unknown to his mother, fiancée Rose Lockely and friends, who sadly question his loyalty when he fails to enlist.
Camilla Van Dam is in love with her rich father's poor employee, John Hamilton. Van Dam is against their marriage but proposes an arrangement to which Camilla agrees. Van Dam goes abroad with the understanding that she will not marry for a year or reveal her whereabouts to Hamilton. Announcing to the press that she is accompanying her father, Camilla instead gets a job as a chorus girl, takes an apartment, and supports herself. Hamilton finds her and joins in the deception until Van Dam's secretary tries to make off with the fortune on hearing the false rumor of Van Dam's death. Van Dam consents readily to his daughter's marriage when he returns.
Gerry Simpson (Bushman) meets newspaper reporter Virginia Blake (Bayne) and, after learning that she has no use for the idle rich, decides to become a reporter and make Virginia believe he is poor in order to win her. Both are very happy until Virginia comes to believe that Gerry is responsible for a series of robberies that have occurred at fashionable functions. She goes to his apartment but is interrupted by Gerry's valet. Gerry arrives home in time to save Virginia from the wrath of the crooked valet and after the thief is brought to justice, Virginia, convinced of Gerry's innocence, promises to marry him.
Nick Carter, called to a prominent New York hotel room by a wealthy mine owner, finds him dead when he arrives. His investigation involves a number of supposed reputable business men, but he solves the mystery and brings all to justice.
A female mail carrier is injured on her route and recovers at a bachelor's lodge.
