The story
“In the primitive society of the mining camp town where Mercy lived, there was no niche for a cripple. The first person who had ever spoken kindly to the little lame orphan was a stranger who disappeared from the camp that same night. A few days later, the sheriff went with his posse into the mountains to hunt down a certain Wiley, an outlaw. Mercy had seen the stranger hiding in the hills. Once she fancied she saw him creep into a cave. She knew the meaning of the hard-twist rope coiled on the sheriff’s saddle-horn. It was a wonderful ride the little cripple girl made to save the fugitive. She found him in the cave, wounded and alone. There the sheriff discovered them. ‘But this ain’t Wiley,’ he said. ‘It is Ned Franey, the new sheriff at Vista. How’d you get in this shape, Ned?’ The stranger pointed to the rear of the cave. Presently, the posse brought forth the outlaw, in irons. Franey had trapped and imprisoned him, single-handed. The new sheriff of Vista brought happiness at last to his little deliverer.”
Summary from Reel Life · 10 July 1915
