Marta of the Jungles

Dick Caulder is a "ticket of leave" man. He is crossing the veldt in Africa, when he comes across a prairie wagon and sees a lion about to enter. He kills the lion and finds within a dead woman and a little girl of about seven years, crying beside her. He takes the child and finds farther on her father, lying dead. The man had been on the way to a doctor for his wife and had encountered a lion. Dick Caulder takes the child to a lonely cabin. Being a criminal of long career, he pursues his dark ways. He takes as partner another evil fellow by the name of Tom. The girl grows up in a dark and menacing atmosphere. The two men are diamond '"fences," getting the diamonds from a kaffir and passing them to smugglers. Sid Rolfe is sent from a London office to discover the source of leakage. It is a month before he finds any duo. He then discovers Caulder in a low saloon, and comparing him to an old photograph taken from the Rogues' Gallery, he spots him as a desperate character. Following the men, he sees the meeting with the kaffir and calls the halt. They, shooting wildly, escape him, but he marks their vicinity and later is saved from a lion by Marta, who gets him to the cabin. He finds a hand-bill of reward and suspicions that he is in the den of thieves. He questions the girl, learns her story, and is persuaded by her to hide in the room above when she hears the men coming. They discover his presence, know he is the man that is after them, and trap him, inasmuch as he cannot come down without being attacked. After many ruses, he comes down and bravely enters a battle with them. In his encounter with the lion, his horse has escaped and returned to headquarters. Suspicion is aroused and a searching party sent for him. The party arrives at the crucial moment. Caulder is killed and Marta, the poor little victim, is freed at last from her dark surroundings. She goes into the sunlight with Sid.