The Broken Brake

Red Stanley's band has successfully robbed the express car and the members are making good their escape when they come upon Helen and her girl chum riding in the woods. The girls are set upon but they succeed by desperate riding in making their escape temporarily and, when danger seems near again, are saved by the approaching railroad detectives searching for the Stanley band. A running fight results in the capture of one of the band, but Stanley and his chief aide escape. Under cover of darkness, as Helen is working alone in the desolate station, the two enter and bind and gag her.

Chilton, a crooked dealer in antiques, decides on a daring scheme to recoup his finances by defrauding the railroad. A car-load of cheap furniture is shipped with a valuation of $40,000 on it. Blanding, the tool of Chilton and his partner, awaits at Lone Point a telegram giving the number of the car.

Greggs, returning from abroad with a large consignment of precious stones, thwarts the first attempt of Gentleman Joe and his accomplice to rob him at his hotel, but they follow him aboard the train the when he is alone on the observation platform they attack him, and a struggle ensues in which Greggs is finally thrown to the ground from the speeding train. Helen, riding through the hills in an auto, comes upon him before Joe and his pal can alight from the train, Greggs gives her the diamonds and tells her to speed away and rush help back to take care of his injuries.

Helen, discharged by the superintendent without justification, comes to the rescue when a flat car, loaded with dynamite, is tearing to certain destruction down the grade, bearing the mischievous son of the superintendent.

Escaping after an early morning bank robbery, Gentleman Joe and his pal succeed in boarding a freight train headed toward Lone Point. Fearing rightly that a warning has been sent down the line, they secrete their loot in a box car, and, after noting its number, alight and seek cover until after the pursuit has cooled.

Stallings' plot to spoil the demonstration of Dick Benton's newly invented safety stop for trains seems certain of success when the locomotive is sent running wild down the tracks. Helen saves the day by climbing out on a wire stretching across the tracks and dropping to the speeding engine.

On a visit to the State Prison with Superintendent Melvin of the construction camp near Lone Point. Helen gains the friendship of Butler, a former telegrapher who had been wrongfully convicted on circumstantial evidence. Butler is soon to be released and Helen promises to aid him.

Following the wreck of the pay-car, it is rifled by a band of conspirators. All but one of the band later succeed in making their escape from the town by automobile, but this one is forced to jump aboard a freight train to which is attached the wreck train and huge crane.

Trent returns to the throttle too soon after his recovery from illness. On the following day Ruth, his daughter, and Hume plan to elope. Trent, with a new fireman, is suddenly taken with a weak spell and when the fireman becomes panic-stricken there is a scuffle which ends with the fireman thrown to the ground while the fast freight speeds on.

Circumstances make Helen think that Jack, the engineer and son of the road's auditor, is guilty of the theft of $50 that comes to light through a shortage in her accounts. Gypsy Joe, the real thief, gathers his followers to seek vengeance on the train crew for having thrown him off the train.

Jud Hendricks, foreman of the construction camp, is being blackmailed by Gypsy Joe, who knows of a dark page in the Hendricks' past. Hendricks and Tom Rasom are rivals for the favor of Helen, with Tom in the lead. The latter, an engineer, is about to take his train out when he finds Gypsy Joe hiding in a boxcar.

Learning that the driver of the Comet car has been disabled on the eve of the big race, Sinton, a gambler, bets heavily on its rival. But his plans go awry when Gordon, the owner of the Comet car, meets Naroche, a celebrated French driver, and engages him to pilot the racer.

Burkett, superintendent of the Western Railway, opposes his daughter's friendship for Dick Benton, one of the company's lawyers, favoring the latter's fellow-worker, Guy Warren. Warren succeeds in putting through a scheme which results in Dick's discharge. The lovers plan to elope and enlist the aid of Helen. But Eleanor's father learns of the move and wires ahead to police officials to board her train and arrest her while he follows in his special. By a daring leap from a handcar to the train Helen succeeds in warning Eleanor of her peril, but is too late, and Helen and Dick are forced to stand idly by while Burkett starts on the return trip in his special, carefully guarding Eleanor.

Agents of a foreign power are seeking to get possession of the plans of a new aeroplane motor invented by Dick Benton. Under cover of darkness they succeed in their scheme and are escaping in their automobile when it plunges over an embankment near Lone Point.

Film 101 in the Hazards of Helen series

Film 102 in the Hazards of Helen series.

Film 103 in the Hazards of Helen series

In the second entry of the popular Hazards of Helen series, Helen, is temporarily assigned as a telegraph operator at Quarry Depot; bad blood springs up between two men who are seeking Helen's favor, but to whom she has remained impartial.

Detective Strong is warned that an attempt will be made to free the crooks he is taking to the penitentiary. In spite of his vigilance, the prisoners escape when confederates start a gunfight on the train. Strong and his men scour the countryside for the fugitives.

Their demand for money having gone unheeded, Garibaldi and his gang wreck Number One. Howard, who attempts to interfere, is battered into insensibility. The criminals then place a note in the man's pocket warning the railroad officials to heed their demands in the future.