Reel Life (Sep 1914 - Mar 1915)

Sixteen REEL LIFE "The Man With a Record" A Powerful Drama of Police Persecution Produced by Reliance CAST The Governor's Daughter. . Billie West His Mother W. H. Brown FROM the time that Jim Doyle was released from State's prison, relentless Fate, in the person of Dan Murphy, one of the Detective Bureau's ablest sleuths, pursued him. How he had incurred Murphy's enmity, even he did not know, although it may be, that the headquarters man believed, that in hounding Doyle, he was doing no more than his official duty. To him Doyle was an "ex-con" with a record and as such to be driven from every honest work at which he tried to turn his hand. It mattered little to Murphy that Doyle had been convicted on the flimsiest of evidence. Bad company, a chain of circumstances, which any good criminal lawyer could have torn to ribbons, and a lack of political influence, had sent Doyle to prison. When he got out, it was to find Murphy always at his heels. In Doyle's home, poverty, like a gaunt wolf, gnawed at the hearts of all. His little sister's meagre earnings were all that kept body and soul together in the household, for Doyle's old mother was too ill and feeble for active work, and whenever Doyle, himself, found a job, it was only to ,be curtly dismissed a few days later, sometimes without a given reason, but more often with the remark, that no "jailbirds" were wanted. Yet for all this, Doyle stayed "straight". Then upon a day, when their evil star was most in the ascendant, Doyle's sister's earnings failed, the rent of their tiny home was due, and his mother sent him with her watch, the last article of value she possessed, to the pawnshop. Here a strange thing happened. Another watch — a stolen one — had just been pawned, and the pawnbroker by mistake entered Doyle's name in his book, as having received the loan for the stolen timepiece. By another odd twist of fate, it was Murphy, who_ was assigned to trace the thief. He investigated the pawnshop records and arrested Doyle. There was a speedy trial and the accused was "railroaded" back to prison for a five year term. Doyle's plea of innocence, and his mother's testimony that the watch pawned was hers, carried no weight with the court, for Mrs. Doyle's watch could not be found at the pawnbroker's. So Doyle took his medicine. Three years later,_in his regular monthly letter from his little sister, the convict learned that his old mother was slowly dying. The longing to see her before the end proved too much for him, and seeing a chance to escape, he made Starring Billie West and William Henneberry in Compelling Boles In Doyle's Home, Poverty, Lik Hearts the most of it. A general alarm was sent out for his capture and Murphy was again put on his trail, but Doyle was not to be caught easily. Knowing that his mother's home would be watched he was wary. One day, a short time after his escape, he was out walking, when a sudden cry of horror from the people around him caused him to turn. A young girl, evidently unused to city traffic, had halted, as if spellbound, directly in the path of a speeding automobile. An instant later, Doyle was dashed headlong by the oncoming machine, but not before he had thrown the girl to one side in safety. "It's the Governor's car," whispered one bystander to another, as a handsomely gowned young lady stepped out of it, "and that's his daughter." Five minutes afterward, the car was speeding to the hospital, with Doyle, badly shaken up, but little injured. -Biit by the irony of fate Murphy had seen the accident, and Doyle had hardly recovered consciousness, when he found that he was again under arrest. Yet his new found friend, the Governor's daughter, refused to desert him, even though Murphy warned her that Doyle was a twice-convicted criminal. Instead, she sat by the injured man's bedside and coaxed his story from him. At his urging, accompanied by a young doctor from the hospital, she went to Doyle's mother's home, to do what she could for the dying woman. Arrived at Mrs. Doyle's bedside, in the squalid room she called home, the young doctor took out his watch to measure her failing pulse. The sick woman's eyes widened in amazement. "Where did you get that watch ?" she queried huskily. The young medical man, in some confusion, and after some delay, stammered that he had bought it in his student days from a dealer in pawnbroker's pledges. Slowly, the old woman gathered her failing faculties. "It's the watch I gave my son the day they took him away," she said at last. The Governor's daughter suddenly understood. She had heard Doyle's story from his own lips and now everything was explained. A whispered word of hope to the woman before her, and with the doctor, she took her departure. How ably she pleaded the convict's cause with her father was soon evident, for a week later Doyle stood by his dying mother's bedside in time to receive her last blessing. He had received a full pardon and the promise of a position, which would forever keep him and the little sister from want. e a Gaunt Wolf, Gnawed at the of All