The Bully and the Shrimp: A young westerner, known as the shrimp, is in love with a pretty western girl. They are engaged to be married. A big burly eastern bully arrives in town and becomes enamored of the girl. He deliberately acts the bully and shows up the shrimp as a coward because of his weakness, and sets about to win the girl. She, believing his courage to be of the right sort, throws over the shrimp and marries the bully. After they have been married some time, the bully is injured and unable to get around. While the bully is laid up, the doctor finds that worry and care the wife has gone through has incapacitated her to such an extent that she is unable to give her baby proper nourishment. The only way to save the baby’s life is to furnish it with a proper amount of baby food. The doctor discovers that there is none in town. He goes to the saloon where the men are congregated and tells them that someone will have to cross the desert to a certain town where the food needed can be obtained. The men, knowing that few have ever returned after crossing the desert, back down. The man who shows supreme courage turns out to be the shrimp. He volunteers and we see him on the desert enduring every hardship. He enters the western town on the opposite side and secures a number of packages of the food. On the way back he loses his way; his horse dies, but he staggers on through the desert, still holding on to the precious food. One by one the packages slip away from his fingers until when he arrives in his home town he staggers up the main street and surrenders just two packages to the men in the saloon. The shrimp dies from exhaustion, the child lives, and the bully is regenerated.

Watch The Bully and the Shrimp (Short 1912)