A mystery novelist meticulously creates an alibi to keep her husband from being convicted of murder.
A film buff's obsession with an elusive, possibly nonexistent film spirals into a dangerous descent, blurring the line between reality and madness.
In the Kentucky hills a store keeper tries to win the love of an innocent schoolteacher. She runs away and seeks refuge with a hermit. A lost film.
While Hastings, the engineer of Freight No. 3205 is at lunch- in the Lone Point station, Bobby Heywood, the son of an engineer, climbs into the cab of the engine. Having frequently observed his father start his locomotive, Bobby jerks the throttle open. Helen sees the freight speeding down the track. Remembering that Bobby has been playing about the station, the girl surmises what has occurred.
Brent, the night operator has been knocked unconscious by a piece of lumber projecting from a passing freight, and has been rendered temporarily insane. Meantime, a furious storm arises, a track walker discovers a washout and wires a warning to Helen, who sets the danger signal for the Limited which is due in ten minutes.
Brandt, a defaulting cashier, hiding in Lone Point in his effort to throw detectives off his track, cuts the wires of Helen's telephone to prevent her from calling for help, binds and gags her, and boards the outgoing Limited. Freed by Detective Sheridan, the two of them get into a gasoline speeder standing on the sidetrack and pursue the Limited.
Attempting to prevent an armed robbery in the paymaster's office, Helen is bound and gagged, and the thieves escape on a hand car. With her feet still bound by wire, Helen endeavors to pursue on foot, but stumbles and falls across the rails of the track of an oncoming train.
Helen receives a cypher message about a jewel robbery and trails the yeggmen to their lair. Discovered, Helen is bound and gagged and thrown into a box car, but gets loose, and leaps to the ground from the speeding train. The crooks are captured, Helen's pluck wins Billy's heart, but, as usual, she refuses, with an eye on next week's adventure.
King attempts to tighten the brake of a freight car standing near the summit of a steep grade at Lone Point. Suddenly, the brake chain snaps and the train commences to roll down hill. Helen sees King's peril, rides to a point just before a curve, crawls hand over hand across a rope which she has stretched across the track, and snatches King from the car moments before the car is dashed to pieces as it leaves the rails of the curve.
A crooked mine owner attempts to hijack his rival's shipment of ore, but Helen foils his plot by jumping onto the engine and pulling the throttle wide open, eventually exposing the unscrupulous villain.
Sharky, a rival road agent, plots to spoil a trial run to be made on Helen's road that will win a mail contract. He opens a waste valve on the tank of the engine, and, when nearing Lone Point, the water tank runs dry. Helen comes to the rescue by mounting the new gasoline speeder and starting off with the mail for the end of the run.
Helen spotting two jewel robbers sever the telegraph wires and hop onto a passing freight, jumps into a racing auto and takes off in pursuit. In the meantime, the freight's brakes fail, and the train breaks in two. Helen, on a road parallel to the tracks, leaps onto a flat car, runs forward, informs the train crew what has happened, and captures the crooks.
Deering and his gang rifle the station safe and gain possession of some valuable gems; Helen seizes the package and throws it into the river. In order to recover the package, a human chain is formed by the railroad men, which Helen climbs down and attempts to catch the package with her feet. Meanwhile, Deering and his men have boarded a launch, and succeed in grabbing both Helen and the package. Morton takes over a freight train, captures the crooks, and rescues Helen and the gems.
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.
"Red" Byrd and his aides succeed in learning that a large treasure is being shipped on a certain freight car under special guard. They overpower the relief operator at Helen's station and tamper with the signals so that the treasure train stops, while the crew runs ahead to investigate, leaving Spencer alone to guard the treasure.
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.
Helen, the telegrapher at Downing Junction, receives word that an engineer has been accidentally shot by a partridge hunter, and the runaway train will collide with the Eastbound Express. Helen jumps onto a nearby standing locomotive, opens it up full throttle, catches up the Express, warns the engineer of the impending danger
The new superintendent's first order on taking the post eliminates the men whom he terms old, which costs "Pop" Bates his job as Helen's relief operator. His next declaration is that active railroad work is no place for women, and Helen is also dropped from the service. While Helen is breaking the news to Bob Bates, the new superintendent is hustling about the road yard speeding up the work. "Put more snap into your switching," he tells the men. A minute later, while he is making an inspection inside a boxcar with defective air brakes, a switching engine rams the car. The force of the impact, heightened by the recent orders, throws the superintendent to the floor stunned, and starts the car on the down grade. In the few moments it is speeding along the road and there is consternation among the men for a washout down the road means that it is headed to certain destruction.
Through an accomplice the band of conspirators preying on railroads succeed in having the boxcar loaded with auto tires sidetracked at Lone Point instead of being taken on to its rightful destination. They are getting away with the valuable shipment when Helen takes a hand in the affair. While each of the trio carries a load of tires back to the autos which are in a sheltered spot, Helen hurriedly climbs the side of the boxcar and releasing the brakes the car, with its heavy load, starts down grade at great speed.
Dick Benton is making a game attempt to start life all over again, after escaping from prison where he was confined for a crime he did not commit. "Peeler" White, who was really guilty, and who aided Benton to escape without telling the reason for his interest, stumbles across the young man who is now an express messenger. "Peeler" threatens to disclose his knowledge unless Benton aids him in a fake hold-up. The young man pretends to be a willing victim, but really warns the railroad detectives and "Peeler" and his companion find themselves in a trap on the train the following day.