Fatherhood

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Lon Gilchrist and Bud Dalton, range riders for an Arizona ranch, are instrumental in aiding the occupants of a stagecoach held up by Indians. Lon observes an Indian tear a baby from its mother's arms. Chasing the redmen, he sees the infant cast into the underbrush and picks it up; it's bleeding from a forehead wound caused by the stiff branches. He bandages the cut with his handkerchief and takes the baby back to its mother. For helping to save the coach, he's rewarded with a large sum of money from the Wells Fargo Express Company and judiciously invests it. Years later Lon is a wealthy ranch owner, but has become so imbued with the spirit of business that he pays practically no attention to the pleasanter sides of life. Meanwhile, Lizzie, the baby Lon saved from the Indians, has now grown up to beautiful womanhood, and since her mother's death she has been earning her living as a waitress. Lon comes to this place and gets acquainted with Lizzie; a mutual attraction develops and they marry. Lon, always reticent, doesn't inform his wife that he is a rich rancher, and great is her surprise when she arrives at the ranch to learn that her husband is a man of wealth. But with all her money, she is not happy, for Lon bestows practically no affection upon her, as all of his time is absorbed in a strict adherence to business. For his wife's amusement Lon permits her to consort with handsome cowboy Del Beasley, whom he adores as a son. A rodeo is being held some distance from the ranch, but as Lizzie is down in health, Lon refuses to let her accompany him. Her highly nervous condition develops hysteria, and she rebukes her husband severely. When Lon goes she tells Del, whom Lon had instructed to take care of her, to drive her to the station, as she has decided to go to the city. Crestfallen and broken-hearted over his wife's action, Lon is unable to proceed very far and turns back home. He finds the note Lizzie had written to him, telling him that she has made up her mind to go back to the city. Not finding Del around, he concludes that he, too, has gone with his wife, and in a jealous rage he starts in pursuit of them. On his way he stops at a brook for a drink, and from the reflection of his haggard face in the water a realization of the disparity of his age and that of his wife comes to him, and he decides to let her go. But there has been no sin committed by his wife, for as he sits in his cabin holding her picture Del appears. Lizzie arrives in the city, and months later her baby is born. Lon is apprised of his fatherhood by a postal card, and he rushes to the city in the hope that the little mite will be the result of a reconciliation. He is led to the room in which his wife is sitting by the kindly old landlady, and as he holds his son in his arms, he tells the story of how he once saved a little baby from the Indians. When he has finished relating the incident, his wife takes from a bureau draw the blood-stained handkerchief which Lon had wound around her head when a baby and. pushing back her hair, shows him the scar. His wife was the little baby girl he had saved, and little did he think at that time that the infant girl would become his life's partner. But Fate works wonders.