The Price of Crime (1914)

Dorothea Vale found it hard to choose between two suitors, Jack Conway and Jack Livingston. She finally accepted Conway, and they made their home with his sweet old mother. For a time they lived happily. Conway became a trusted bank cashier and grew prosperous. Then he began to go the pace, and neglected his faithful wife for women of the world. Dorothea soon learned of her husband's escapades. She tried to win him back from his ruinous course, but without avail. So she devoted herself to his aged mother. At last the inevitable happened. Conway was found short in his accounts by the bank examiner. He rushed to his home, hurriedly packed his grip, and while he delayed for a moment for his mother's caresses the detectives, who had followed him to the house, placed him under arrest. He was tried and sentenced to a long term in prison. Dorothea kept the mother in ignorance of the true fate of her son, saying that he had gone on a journey in the interest of the bank and would not return for a long time. The bank seized everything of value which Conway had possessed and left his wife and mother in straitened circumstances, but the wife, on the verge of poverty, labored. Conway at last managed to escape from prison and jumped on a train headed westward. After a long journey he leaped off the train, was hurt, and picked up by a band of outlaws. When they satisfied themselves that he was not a spy they made him one of their number. In the meantime his mother suffered a paralytic shock, and as a result lost her eyesight. The doctor advised a quick change of climate, and Dorothea decided to take the old lady up into the rugged hills of Colorado. It so happens that the train in which they traveled had a large shipment of gold aboard. The outlaw chief secured knowledge of this shipment and arranged to hold up the train. The troupe of train robbers, including Conway, hid behind a little bluff, and the bandit thief's sister on horseback rode out to meet the train. Then she leaped from her saddle, caught the ladder of a box car next the engine, climbed to the top and made her way to the tender. Revolver in hand, she compelled the engineer to stop the train at the exact spot where her band was in hiding. The outlaws quickly surrounded the train and ordered the passengers out. Conway, being at the other end of the train, did not discover his wife and mother. The strong box was taken from the express car. As they were galloping in haste back to their rendezvous they encountered a posse under command of Sheriff Buck Connors, who had been notified of the intended train robbery. Jack Conway was riding at the head of the flying outlaws. Suddenly his horse stumbled and fell. A dozen other horses fell over him. Conway was captured with many more of the outlaws. Lying in a blanket slung between two horses, he was taken toward the nearest town. On the way they passed the train, still at the scene of the hold-up. The blind mother, sitting in the grass with Dorothea, recognized in the cries of the wounded man her son's voice. She called to him; he heard her, and asked to be taken to her. She folded him in her arms; he looked up into her unseeing eyes and breathed his last. The excitement of the meeting caused the old mother to suffer another stroke. She was removed to a little shanty close by, where she passed away, never knowing that her son had paid with his life the price of crime. Dorothea, pale and worn, looked out upon the mountain tops and wept.