This is not necessarily a bad short feature, but its interest as a movie is rather less than its value as a historical record. That's because it survives as two distinct prints, one of which is the finished movie, and the other of which preserves the scenes in the order that they were filmed, allowing the viewer to, in a sense, see D.W. Griffith at work.
The movie itself is about average, though it has some obvious flaws. Most of the individual sequences are filmed well enough, but the story as a whole does not always flow, since it leaves some of the details obscured. You can still follow the important steps in the action, though. The story is mildly interesting, with some moments of tension, but at the cost of lessened credibility, in that there are too many coincidences for them not to become noticeable.
The alternate print is interesting because it shows Griffith's strategy of filming, including his concern with things such as settings and details, camera angles, and the like. Griffith often gets more credit for innovation than is probably actually due him, since other film-makers came up with some of the same or similar ideas as he did, but instances like this show how systematic Griffith was, and in that respect he may well have stood out among the directors of the time.
