Malicious Rival

• 1909
• Other, Drama

At an old-fashioned inn, situated in a mountainous and snow-covered district, a handsome young artist. Jack Branton by name, takes up his abode for a few days, with the intention of making a few sketches. Not averse, however, from beguiling his leisure time as pleasantly as possible, the artist is soon engaged in a flirtation with the serving girl, whilst her sweetheart, a mountaineer, looks disgustedly on. As soon as Jack leaves the girl, the mountaineer protests, and treats the girl somewhat brutally. Jack comes back, sees him, and promptly turns him out of doors, before his loaded pistol. The next day, Jack takes his easel out and is fixing it up, when three men, among whom Jack recognizes his enemy, set upon him, bind him to a tree and leave him. Snow has commenced to fall, and Jack quickly realizes the fate in store for him. Big flakes fall, slowly burying him beneath their accumulated weight. The blood freezes in his veins, and there seems no hope of his being rescued, when he hears voices, a band of boys just liberated from school are having a snowball fight. One of them perceives the upright figure, and the snowballs are turned against the snowman. A lucky throw causes a mass of snow to fall, revealing the head of Jack, and in a few minutes the youngsters break away the rest of the hardened snow and liberate him. Jack lingers, after the youngsters have run off, and then piles the snow up again. Behind this heap he hides, and presently the mountaineer returns to see the result of his villainous scheme. Jack steps out to confront him, and terrified before what he believes to be a spectre, the mountaineer takes a step backwards and falls over a precipice.