The husband and his wife live alone in the mountains, where he is working out a claim. A stranger from a distant mine is injured in the vicinity. The husband nurses him back to health. During his convalescence the stranger persuades the wife to elope with him.
The girl has three suitors: a young Mexican, who symbolizes love, a cripple, who symbolizes devotion, and a wealthy haciendiero, who symbolizes wealth. Despite the protests of Love and the pain of Devotion, the girl is given in marriage to Wealth by her father. A year lapses and the girl has suffered by her father's choosing. Wealth is faithless to her and heaps upon her head humiliation and indignity and finally brutality. Love returns to her and after listening to her story swears that he will kill Wealth, but Devotion restrains him with the advice that if he kills Wealth he can never have the girl. To insure the girl's happiness Devotion kills Wealth himself and then takes his own life.
The earliest surviving film featuring Lon Chaney in a major role, By the Sun's Ray's was but one of several 2-reel westerns starring the florid Murdock MacQuarrie. MacQuarrie plays a detective investigating a series of gold shipment robberies. Along the way, he falls for a mine superintendent's pretty daughter (Agnes Vernon), much to the dismay of a sullen mine office clerk (Chaney), who is also smitten with the girl...
The Chief's son, Silver Water, returns from college and is met at the station by the tribe. The Indians make merry to celebrate his homecoming. Hal Benton, an easterner, rides on to ask his way to the hotel, where he is stopping with some friends, among them his fiancée, Veda Mead, and her father. Knowing that the Indian ceremonies will interest his friends, Hal obtains permission to come the next day and bring his friends. The Chief calls Morning Star, an Indian maiden, telling his son that she is to be his squaw. Silver Water is pleased with her. The next day Hal Benton and his friends arrive. While the others inspect the camp, Veda Mead amuses herself with Silver Water and ere long is thoroughly infatuated with him, while the Indian's vanity is touched by the attentions of the society coquette, and he promises to meet her the next day. Their little tete-a-tete is cut short by the entrance of Morning Star.
A man is a fugitive from the law. A reward of $2,000 is offered for his capture. A large posse is on his trail. Weary, hungry and haunted, the refugee is slowly but surely being hemmed in.
Bess's pet donkey Sammy, has just died. Her three cowboy lovers call to propose, and as they all arrive about the same time, Bess is in a quandary. Her recent bereavement sharpens her wits. She tells them she would marry the first one that brings her a white donkey, just like her dead Sammy.
Alice receives an invitation from her grandfather, who is the minister of a small country church, to pay him a visit, which invitation she accepts. Mandy is loved by Jed, but her affections are with the deacon.
The poor man, professing love for his family, drinks what he presumes to be poison in order to make a thousand dollars for them, but the drink proves to be harmless.
A white man befriends a half-breed, who subsequently saves his life.
Dr. Frank Rosslyn, known to the world as a prominent physician, is in reality the head of a quack medical concern which dispenses patent medicines and advertises extensively.
Lillian is an unfortunate woman. After leaving her baby at the door of a hospital she meets David, the author of her misfortune. It is a case of starvation or the "easiest way." She chooses the "easiest way." After eighteen years she again shows up, a social outcast and a tool for David's black profession.
Thus far Sophie has failed completely as a motion picture actress. She has spoiled every scene, but through the general manager she is to be given one more chance. She is sent to the border to act in Mexican war pictures.
Randall is a rich mine owner whose business affairs cause him to neglect his somewhat frivolous wife. There is a mutual friend whom Randall carelessly allows to entertain his wife. As a result, the friend pays more than natural attentions to the woman. The three visit one of Randall's mines. The wife and friend go down the mining shaft in a bucket. While they are yet underground, a quantity of dynamite explodes. The mine is filled with poisonous fumes.
Professor De Risque, anxious to escape for a time the too solicitous attention of Madame De Risque, arrives at Roaring Gulch and, noting that the town numbers some very pretty girls amongst its population, he hangs out his shingle announcing the fact that he teaches the piano and violin. The professor is charming and the young ladies are impressionable, they readily desert the constant cowboys for the professor. The cowboys get their heads together and plan a counter-move.
The wife takes with her their small daughter, leaving the son to the care of the father. The forlorn woman wanders into a fishing village, and is taken into a kindly fisherman's family. To more surely separate herself from the world that knows her. She assumes her maiden name. Many years afterward the father and the son, now grown, pass through the village. The son becomes acquainted with his own sister, knowing nothing of the relationship, and falls in love with her. He persuades his father to spend his season at a summer resort nearby. Later, the son and the daughter are secretly married. The girl leaves a note for her mother, telling her of the act. The mother follows to the parsonage, and then the summer resort, where she overtakes the couple.
Colonel Bunk, after seeing his first movie, appoints himself “supreme censor of the movies” and he and his Board of Censors set to the task of “pruning” a movie (in more ways than one).
Dorothy is a city girl who has chosen to teach school in the backwoods. Pierre is a product of the backwoods, a man who will allow no one to cross him in the most trivial matter, a man in whom the baser elements of character are predominant.
Jacques watched through an opening in the foliage and saw Gilbert of the mounted police and his own wife exchange pleasant greetings. From that moment he hated the police officer. Gilbert was too fine-looking.
Much to the delight of the simple old father, his daughter becomes engaged to a big-hearted mountaineer. He builds their hut in the wilderness, and she is happy, though she often dreams of the great world outside. Then comes the intruder from the city, a man of the world. He obtains hoard at the girl's home. He blinds her eyes to the beautiful things of the; woods with his talk of pretty places and things of the great world without. He tempts and wins her away from the big-hearted backwoodsman. The young mountaineer, who has been working on his cabin, returns and finds the old man dozing and the girl gone.
Almost a Rescue is a 1913 movie starring Donald MacDonald and Roscoe Arbuckle.
