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The Man-Eater
Jefferson Scott, Jr. and Robert Gordon, hunters in the Belgian Congo, are
thrown together with missionaries Sangamon and Mary Morton and their daughter
Ruth. Scott marries Ruth, and Gordon is entrusted with stock certificates
to be taken back to Scott's father in America. Later Scott and the elder
Mortons are killed by the native Wakandas; Ruth and her daughter Virginia
are saved by Belgian forces and afterwards return to America to live with
Scott's father. The stock certificates, meanwhile, have gone astray, with
only a single sheet of paper having been delivered to the elder Scott.
Nineteen years pass. On the death of Jefferson Scott, Sr., Virginia Scott
is to inherit the estate, but the will cannot be located, and Scott Taylor,
her grandfather's disinherited nephew, appears to claim a half share. Proposing
to Virginia in an effort to obtain it all, he is rebuffed, whereupon he
disputes her right to any of the estate, pretending she is illegitimate.
Ruth attempts to prove her marriage to Virginia's father by writing to
Robert Gordon, who witnessed the ceremony, but he is now deceased. Her
appeal reaches his son Dick Gordon instead. Moved but unable to provide
the desired proof, Gordon writes back of his intention to sail to Africa
to seek documentation of the marriage there. Taylor intercepts the letter
and follows him with the intention of murder. Discovering this, Virginia
also sets out for Africa. Gordon reaches the ruins of the old mission and
finds there a sealed envelope, with which he begins his trek back to the
coast. Taylor and his confederates Kelley and Gootch await him in ambush
in a native village. They kill a lioness, whose mate the natives take captive
in a pit trap. Virginia arrives at the village and is imprisoned by the
villains. Meanwhile, Gordon discovers and frees the captured lion, which
then returns to the village seeking the killers of its mate. The lion arrives
just as the villains are about to rape and kill Virginia, and kills Gootch
while others flee. Virginia escapes but is stalked by a hyena. Gordon,
who happens to be nearby, hears her scream and shoots the beast. She warns
him against Taylor, who then appears with Kelley, seeking her. Seizing
Gordon's gun, she wounds Taylor and drives the villains off. They return
to America and separate, Gordon somehow neglecting to give her the envelope.
Meanwhile, the lion has been captured by hunters and sold to an itinerant
American circus, in which he is billed as "Ben, King of Beasts, the Man-Eating
Lion." Realizing his omission, Gordon visits the Scott home to deliver
the envelope to Virginia and Ruth, unaware that Taylor and Kelley have
returned from Africa and still plan to kill him. He finds the Scotts absent
from home, their return delayed by a train wreck. Ben, who was also on
the train, is freed by the wreck and turns up at the house, where he detects
the scents of both his rescuer Gordon and the two villains. Encountering
the latter, he kills Kelley and pursues Taylor to Gordons room. There Taylor
struggles with Gordon and overcomes him, taking the envelope before fleeing
from Ben. The lion follows, overtaking and killing Taylor within sight
of the returning Scott's. Gordon, pursuing Taylor, recognizes Ben and protects
him from the armed party that arrives to kill the escaped lion. He buys
Ben from the circus, intending to give him a new home in a zoo. The mysterious
envelope, finally opened, proves to contain the long lost stocks, not the
hoped for marriage certificate. The latter turns up, together with the
missing will, in a cupboard in the Scott house, having been secreted there
by Jefferson Scott, Sr. The certificate was evidently the paper Gordon's
father had delivered to the elder Scott instead of the stocks. Dick Gordon
and Virginia Scott declare their love for each other and decide to marry.
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