- Jack Lane, a young nature photographer, goes to the mountains to experiment with his new flashlight process that will automatically photograph the passage of any bird or wild animal. While asleep one night, Jack is awakened by gunshots and soon after discovers that his camera has registered a picture of a woman fleeing carrying a shotgun. Curious, he visits the cabin of Porter Brixton, the murdered man, and is arrested for the crime. Managing to escape, Jack meets Delice Brixton, the woman whose likeness developed from the plate. They both suspect each other of the crime, but Jack is recaptured and brought to trial. At the hearing, when the dead man's half brother, Henry Norton, appears and admits killing Brixton in self-defense, Jack is acquitted.
- Jack Lane has gone to the mountains to experiment in photographing animals. His own invention, combined with a flashlight arrangement, sets off the camera when an animal steps upon a certain twig or moves the branch of a tree, automatically photographing the object within range. Lane has a cabin in the vicinity, but night overtakes him at some distance from his shack. He applies for shelter to Porter Brixton, a recluse, who refuses. Lane goes into the woods, sets his photographic outfit, and goes to sleep in his blankets. He is awakened by the sound of his flashlight exploding. Coincidentally he hears the report of a rifle in the direction of Brixton's cabin. When morning dawns Lane takes his blankets and photographic outfit and goes to his cabin. There he develops the plate and finds the photograph of a girl, carrying a rifle, snapped by his camera at a moment she is evidently in flight. Later he learns that Porter Brixton has been murdered. Curiosity leads Lane to Brixton's cabin. The sheriff arrests him when the tracks Lane made in the mud when he asked for shelter the night before fit the shoes Lane wears. Going overland with his prisoner the sheriff stops at a mountaineer's cabin for the night. Lane, bent upon escape, lines up the men in the cabin to take their photograph. Amid the smoke produced by the exploding flashlight Lane gets away. Morning finds him exhausted upon the banks of a mountain stream. He is awakened by the presence of the girl his camera pictured. She parries his inquiries, but suggests that the two stick together in their efforts to escape. The girl has a canoe, and in this the man and woman make their way downstream until they are overtaken by the bands of mountaineers who seek to recover Lane. Lane and the girl get ashore and separate. The sheriff's deputy re-captures Lane and takes him to the county seat for trial. When things look blackest for Lane, the girl appears as a witness, and her testimony acquits him. She tells that Brixton, who is her father, has not been murdered. The dead man was Brixton's half-brother, who has been killed by Brixton in pursuance of a feud that the murdered man went to Brixton's cabin for the purpose of settling. Because of their striking personal resemblance Brixton changed clothes with the dead man and left the vicinity forthwith. Now he returns for the purpose of freeing an innocent man and standing trial for an act of self-defense. Lane and his "flashlight girl" are free to bring to fruition the love that had been born on the day they endeavored to escape from their pursuers in the journey down the mountain stream. They have assurance from the mountaineers that Brixton's trial will be a mere matter of form, so clearly has an act of self-defense been established.
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