AustLit

'The beautiful young Laura Courtland is looking forward to marriage with Captain Ray Trafford, but when he discovers that she was adopted when arrested as a child-pickpocket, he turns from her. In despair, she runs away from home and ends in court, where the villainous Byke claims to be her father. A decent one-armed ex-soldier Snorkey and a repentant Trafford intervene to prevent Byke abducting Laura to New Jersey. In the ensuing fight, Byke throws Laura in the river. She swims to safety and returns to her adoptive home, where she selflessly urges Trafford to marry her cousin Pearl. When Snorkey tries to foil Byke's plan to burgle the Courtlands' home, Byke ties him to a railroad track in the path of an advancing train. Laura breaks out of the shed where Byke has trapped her and frees Snorkey in the nick of time. She returns home and learns that she and Pearl were exchanged as babies, and that Laura is the legitimate Courtland heir. She is now able to marry Trafford' (Oxford Reference).