In the Warden's Garden

Jim Haley, an ex-crook, unable to get work, cannot support his wife and child, Thelma. Jim runs across Shifty Anderson, a crook stool pigeon for the police, and Shifty persuades Jim to return to his old trade and burglarize a residence that Shifty has picked out. Jim consents, since it is a case of life or death for his wife. Shifty tips off the police and Jim is pinched and caught with the goods and sentenced to the penitentiary for ten years. Jim's wife dies, leaving Thelma a dependent child. Unable to support Thelma, a kindly neighbor woman takes the child to an orphan asylum. Jim is heartbroken and swears to kill Shifty for his treachery if fate ever throws him in his path. The warden of the penitentiary to which Jim is sent and his wife have lost a child by death and they resolve to adopt another to raise. They visit the orphanage and adopt Jim's child, not knowing that she is the daughter of a convict. Shifty gets in bad and is sent to the same prison where Jim is. Jim sees Shifty one noon in the prison mess room and tries to kill him but guards prevent him. Shortly afterward word reaches the warden of an attempted prison outbreak. The warden searches for the ring leaders to punish them. Shifty tells him that Jim is one of the ring leaders, though Jim is innocent. The warden throws Jim into the prison dungeon and laces him in the "jacket," a terrible instrument of torture, to make him confess and betray his fellow-companions in the plot. The following morning Jim escapes from the jacket and by impersonating the guard he has overpowered, escapes from the prison, though wounded in his getaway. The hunt for the fugitive has no more than started when the real outbreak occurs within the walls. Shifty joins the mutineers and is shot down by a guard. Jim gets away from the prison and takes refuge in the warden's garden, unaware of where he is. Thelma, playing in the garden, finds Jim unconscious and revives him. Jim recognizes her as his own child. She aids Jim to escape. He tells her before he leaves that her Daddy will come back for her some day.