On the Battle Line

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Caron refuses to fight a duel with a hot-headed young Londoner and is branded as a coward. His friends desert him and he is cut by the woman he loves. Unable to face their scorn, he leaves for one of the British Colonies in Africa, where he settles near an army post and spends his time hunting big game with the officers stationed on the desert's edge. One day Caron goes hunting with Captain Pemberton. a dashing cavalry officer noted for his reckless courage. They are attacked and surrounded by a band of hostile Arabs and forced to fight for their lives against tremendous odds. A soldier who is with them succeeds in breaking through the encircling line and gallops away for help, leaving the two to fight off their assailants as best they can. Both men fight like demons, but Pemberton soon falls, mortally wounded. Before dying, however, he unpins a medal from his blouse and hands it to Caron with the words, "They gave it to me for bravery under fire; I could not leave it in worthier hands than yours." Soon a troop of cavalry gallops up, routs the Arabs and rescues Caron. Years later Caron returns to London. With him is his foster daughter Marjorie, whom he adopted as a child and who now is a beautiful young woman of seventeen. The girl meets and falls in love with Lieutenant Pemberton, son of the cavalry captain who died fighting shoulder to shoulder with Caron on the battle line. The specter of Caron's "cowardice" of years before is raised by his former associates, but the medal and the story of how it came into his possession dispel the cloud and he finds happiness in the joy of the young couple.