- A train that is carrying the formula for a valuable form of granulated gasoline disappears before it reaches its destination. Railroad investigators and the authorities try to determine where it is and who took it.
- Episode 1: "The Lost Express" Helen Thurston is the daughter of General Thurston, inventor-financier man of wealth. Thurston owns a new invention for granulating gasoline, a mechanical invention affecting combustion, without which granulated gas is useless. Thurston's mansion is outside Capital City near Landport. With him live his daughter, Helen, and Gaston Pitts, private secretary. Thurston regards Pitts as a future husband for Helen, who distrusts the man. The representative of a foreign government, Valquez negotiates for rights to Thurston's process. Thurston is obdurate. Valquez hires crooks to obtain the device. In this gang are "The Leach," "The Baron" and "The Hare." "The Hare" has a harelip. He resembles Pitts but for that deformity. This gang burglarizes the Thurston place. Helen gives the alarm. General Thurston is paralyzed by a bullet wound. Helen hires an express train to transfer the invention and models to a city bank vault. The express train completely disappears between stations from a single line of rail with no switches. Helen rescues the crew of the missing train in a desperate leap from a speeding engine to a wagon pulled by runaway horses.—Moving Picture World synopsis
- Episode 2: "The Destroyed Document" The mysterious disappearance of the express train in broad daylight throws the railway organization into a turmoil. Light engine searching crews start from both ends of the short line to locate "The Lost Express." They report no trace of it. The mystery grows. Meantime Valquez and his gang, the only persons who know what has become of the missing train, are in possession of General Thurston's documents and models. They discover that the principal blueprint is missing. Detective Murphy, chief of the railway secret service, holds a consultation with Helen. Murphy is elated when Helen tells him that one of the robbers has a harelip. Valquez refuses to pay for the Thurston formula until it is complete. The thieves undertake to return to where they have hidden the train and find it. Detective Murphy pursues and is shot. Helen follows Murphy, rescues him in an unconscious state and takes him to a hospital. Leaving the hospital, Helen sees "The Hare." She pursues him. He boards a moving train. Helen races her car to a bridge over the track. When the train passes, she drops on the roof. Crawling along the car top, Helen sees "The Baron" and "The Hare" sitting near a window in the smoker. Between them lies the all-important paper, the missing blueprint.—Moving Picture World synopsis
- Episode 3: "The Wreck at the Crossing" Helen is seized with a brilliant idea. Taking a sun glass from her wrist bag, she clambers down the rocking car roof and focuses the sun on the blueprint as it lies on the table. Suddenly the paper catches fire. It is destroyed. Helen is discovered and pursued. Chased over the sloping roofs of the passenger train by "The Baron" and "The Leach," Helen makes a desperate flight. She escapes by jumping and catching a bridge guard. Hand over hand along the wires she makes her way to earth. She is near a village. From the drug store she telephones the railway offices. A motorcar is sent to take her to the Thurston home. To save the only existing duplicates of the Thurston invention, the shop plans, Helen sends young Bonner to fetch them. He is intercepted by Pitts, the secretary, who possesses himself of the combustion chamber plans. "The Baron" and his gang undertake to steal them from Pitts, not recognizing him as "Harelip." Homer, determined to get the plans from Pitts, fights him for them. While the fight is on "The Baron" steals the paper. He escapes in an automobile. Helen and Bonner, with "Harelip" pretending to be aiding, in his character of Pitts, pursue. Helen's machine is wrecked in a terrific smashup at the crossing when it is hit by a fast express. Helen is unconscious and taken to the Valquez oil works.
- Episode 4: "The Oil Well Conspiracy" Valquez, diplomatic crook, orders Helen, unconscious, conveyed from the Valquez property. He insists that no member of the family of General Thurston must be about his plant. Valquez fears discovery of "The Lost Express." Pitts makes arrangements for Helen's removal to the Thurston home. Medical examination displays no serious injury. Helen puzzles the doctor. Her eyes open and close. Is she shamming? Valquez pays "The Baron" and "The Leech" for the stolen duplicate. They are shadowed by the railway secret service men, who watch them count the $100,000 they have received from Valquez. Murphy is on the trail. Valquez discovers that something is missing from the blueprint of the combustion chamber. He determines not to trust "The Baron" or "The Leech" again. He seeks out "The Lost Express" to solve the mystery. Pitts, alias "Harelip," decides the safest thing is to make Helen marry him and end his plotting. Helen refuses. "Harelip" decides to aid Valquez and he is first to reach the hidden train. He finds the missing part of the machine, hiding himself in a deserted shack. Helen trails Pitts. She finds him as "Harelip." She enters the shack when he is away and smashes the model he has hidden there. Helen escapes from "Harelip" when a wild oil car jumps the track and wrecks the building just as she has left it.
Episode 5: "In Deep Waters" The oil train demolished the building in which "harelip" and Helen Thurston have had their struggle for possession of the blueprint. Helen recovers consciousness and attempts to make her way from the wreckage, but is too weak to walk and collapse, protruding her hand through the window of her prison. Gypsies, passing at this moment, are attracted by the chance of salvage and they make an investigation. One of the women takes the rings from Helen's fingers and the gypsy band moves on. The syndicate members plan to tap the Thurston oil fields. Bonner, office assistant, attentive to the interests of his idol, Helen, and Murphy, the railroad detective, arrive at the Landport railroad station in their search for Helen. Finding no trace of her there, they go on. On the road they dash into the gypsy van and overturn it. In the explanations which follow, Bonner discovers Helen's rings on the hands of a gypsy girl. With her as a guide, the two searchers race their motor to the rescue of Helen. Coincident with this dash to the Valquez grounds, the syndicate crooks are speeding to the Thurston property. When the rescuers find Helen, "The Baron" and his party are giving orders for tapping the forbidden trunk line of the neighboring oil fields. At the Thurston residence, physicians are giving the injured General Thurston his final treatment. "Harelip," discarding his disguise, appears as Pitts, the private secretary. The invalid asks for Helen, and receives no satisfaction from Pitts. Helen is apprised that the Thurston wells are out of commission owing to a leak in the main line. The Thurston men send a diver down into the bay to locate the leak. This inspires "The Baron" to send one of his own men, armed with a knife, to the water's edge, to await the immersion of the Thurston diver. When the diver goes below, the pipes supplying him with air are cut and he is left to his fate.
Episode 6: "High Voltage" The drowning diver is rescued from his perilous position through the heroism of Helen Thurston. Pitts plans to secure the box containing Thurston family archives from "The Lost Express," and to turn its contents to his own use. Pitts discovers that the Mountain King Mine, a Thurston property, has become suddenly valuable. Thurston, who has been on a sick bed, is still unable to talk, but he manages to convey to Helen the information concerning the mine. Helen prevents "Harelip" from getting possession of the box.
Episode 7: "The Race with the Limited" "The Baron," "Harelip," alias Pitts, "The Leech" and Valquez enter into a conspiracy to keep knowledge of big gold developments in the Mountain King range from General Thurston. Pitts is ordered to prevent either Thurston or his daughter, Helen, from starting on a journey to the range. Helen becomes convinced that there is some mysterious connection between Pitts and "Harelip." She consults Murphy and between them they trail Pitts to the Valquez offices.
Episode 8: "The Mountain King" The Mountain King mine develops as an immensely valuable property. Helen and Murphy, by trailing Pitts, discover traces of "The Lost Express." Detective Murphy is convinced that the missing train is camouflaged by the skillful foreign gang. General Thurston urges Murphy to locate the missing train at any expense and Helen determines to go with the railway detective on the trail. Young Bonner, the clerk, who is devoted to Helen, handicaps the search by following her, being jealous of Murphy's attention.
Episode 9: "The Looters" The Thurston mine, Mountain King, shows a tremendous increase of ore production. Pitts and the gang endeavor to keep this information away from the Thurstons. Pitts and "The Baron" make their way through the hills to the hiding place of "The Lost Express." Pitts and his gang remove the box containing the Thurston papers, but Helen and her aids open it in transit and remove the valuables. Helen has a fight with "Harelip" on an ore car.
Episode 10: "Fire and Water" Pitts is found lying unconscious. He relates how he was thrown from his car by a man in a checked coat, having failed to recognize Helen in his assailant. Helen and Rev. Thompson, preacher at the works, superintend the construction of the tenement homes. Pitts recovers and believes Helen is dead. Pitts and his gang are desperate at their inability to keep the Thurstons out of the big gold profits found in the Mountain King. Helen saves the preacher's baby in an heroic dash across a burning bridge. The bridge falls under her.
Episode 11: "When North Was South" The big fire destroys much of the old town near Mountain King. The gold that has been taken out of the mine is in danger. Bonner and the minister are to have charge of the gold removal. "Harelip" and "The Baron" knock out Bonner and his partner. They are gagged and the boat is in the hands of the gang. "The Baron," who is steering, loses his helm in the dark and the boat swings round. They steer for the same dock they have left. There the gang is met by Bonner, Murphy and the minister who recapture the gold boat after a fight.
Episode 12: "Law Is Law" The gang gets reinforcements and hurries to the rescue of "The Baron," "Harelip" and "The Leech," who are hard beset by Bonner, aided by Helen Thurston. Helen, Bonner, and the others give chase in another motorboat, and there is a wild race between the boats in the darkness, with flashes of many guns and the burning of search flares. Helen is arrested on a false charge by Pitts through the timidity of a city marshal, who says "Law is Law." She escapes, and in a desperate pistol battle captures "The Baron." Pitts escapes.
Episode 13: "Disowned" Helen was wounded in the arm in the thrilling battle with the bandits. Pitts tries to convince General Thurston that Helen is trying to undermine him in control of the Thurston estate. The old general attacks the secretary, and is taken aback when Pitts shows the original telegram from Helen ordering a sale of the Thurston home. She is too weak to defend herself.
Episode 14: "Trapped" General Thurston is abducted by Pitts and kept in a rooming house, secluded. Simultaneously Crosby returns from the United States mint with a receipt for $102,000 worth of gold ingots. "The Baron" and his associates try to reach the Mountain King workings through the entrance of the old Miller mine shaft. Murphy is imprisoned by a blast. Pitts makes a determined effort to murder Helen by drowning her in a basement vault.
Episode 15: "The Found Express" Pitts supposes Helen to be dead. She surprises him by appearing at the Miller mine alive. Helen liberates Bonner and Murphy from the mine entrance where they have been imprisoned. Pitts captured by Murphy is forced to disclose the whereabouts of "The Lost Express." Helen with Murphy and the railway detectives recover the lost train. Pitts confesses. "The Baron" and "The "Leech" are placed under arrest. Helen marries Bonner.
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