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Mary Willard takes over her father's railroad after his death. Her major competitor is a ruthless crook named Harvey Judson. She arranges for Judson to be kidnapped and taken to an isolated spot deep in the forest and turned loose to fend for himself. She accompanies the kidnappers to the wild and Judson, not knowing who she is, begins to fall in love with her. Complications ensue.

In this lost adaptation of the 1903 novel, Roy Glennister and Cherry Malotte fight against crooked politicians to keep a gold mine.

Dick Audaine, known affectionately as the "Imp," is engaged to Phyllis Ericson, even though she is in love with his guardian, Richard Carewe. Meanwhile, the Imp has fallen in love with Kara Glynesk, who is only interested in his money. Phyllis intercepts a love letter from Kara and erroneously believes it is intended for Richard. In an attempt to protect the Imp, Richard hides the truth from Phyllis. Richard and the "Trinity," three life-long friends and self-appointed co-guardians of the Imp, try in vain to stop his marriage to Kara. However, Kara quickly discovers that her husband is penniless and finds a new lover. The Imp realizes his folly, and Phyllis is now free to marry Richard.

Betty Jordan falls in love with Easterner Burke Randolph after seeing his performance in the Broadway hit A Western Knight . When Betty returns home to Montana, Sheriff Sims, her admirer, discovers her photographs of Burke and becomes jealous. Soon after, Burke's touring theater company comes to perform in a neighboring town. When Sims discovers Burke's proximity, he orders his arrest. Burke escapes but is recaptured by a posse. Just as they are about to lynch Burke, Betty rides in and rescues him by cutting the rope, reenacting a scene from the Broadway show. Burke then captures a band of bank robbers, and the sheriff, faced with his own duplicity, releases Burke, who becomes the town's hero and marries Betty.

Young American John Maude is forced to find a job when he falls in love with society girl Betty Keith. He accepts a sudden offer to go to Mervo, a tiny island country, where he is hired by Benjamin Scobell to pose as the lost prince of Mervo as an attraction to bolster the Mervo casino as a rival of Monte Carlo. Scobell also wants John to marry his stepdaughter, who turns out to be Betty. When Betty accuses John of being simply a shill for a gambling house, John closes the casino and tries to stage a revolution to make Mervo a republic. The natives resist, but the President of Mervo returns to run the casino himself, and Betty and John escape to America together.

After serving his time for a crime he did not commit, ex-convict Jimmy Doyle is determined to go straight for the one he loves, Nancy Preston. Thereafter, Doyle notifies the man who framed him, Detective James Tierny, that any further false accusations will result in his death. Double-crossed by former pals, Doyle is sent back to prison but escapes in time to rescue Nancy from Dave Monteith, one of the colleagues who betrayed him. But when Monteith is killed by an accomplice, suspicion points to Doyle as the murderer. Desperate, he and Nancy run away to a small town where, because he once studied medicine, he becomes an assistant in his uncle's hospital. Meanwhile, Tierney is closing in on Doyle when he suffers an attack of appendicitis from which only Doyle can save him. Resisting his baser feelings, Doyle performs the operation and saves his foe's life. Finally, word arrives that the real murderer has been found, then Tierney gives Doyle and Nancy his blessings.

Poor stenographer Gloria Graham believes that clothes make a woman successful in business and as a result she incurs great debts. After receiving news that her boyfriend Philip Belden has been killed fighting in World War I in France, Gloria marries her employer Horace Lennon for his money. Gloria finds her husband faithless, and discovers that good clothes in themselves do not create success. The news of Philip's death proves to be false, and he returns from a German prison camp and appears at Gloria's home. Lennon is shot accidentally by Gloria's maid, and although Gloria is arrested, she eventually is acquitted and reunited with Philip.

Leona Stafford receives a legacy of $1000 and invests it in a scheme to catch a rich husband. After purchasing a new wardrobe, Leona goes to a fashionable resort hotel where she poses as a widow with a mysterious past. She arouses the suspicions of the hotel clerk, a correspondence school sleuth, who suspects that she has kidnapped Captain Cromwell, a wealthy aviator who has been missing for several days. Desperate, Leona appeals for help to Tubbs, whom she believes to be an idle tramp. Tubbs wins her love before he discloses himself as the missing aviator, causing Leona to heave a sigh of relief that her search for a husband has ended.

Frank Miller, arriving in a California gold rush town in the days of '49, gets fleeced of all his assets in a crooked card game by a gang while his sister Mary waits in their hotel. Virginia gentleman gambler Burke Allister forces the gang to let Frank win the money back, but Frank is shot and killed by Faro Ed, whom Burke then kills. Burke and Mary leave and establish unsuccessful claims away from the town, but gang leader Dan Middleton, attracted to Mary, sends Four-Ace Baker to convince her that Burke was in on Frank's murder. Mary believes Baker, and when Burke goes to town for a doctor after Mary is injured and then he is captured by Middleton's men, Mary leaves the claim with Middleton. Burke escapes and is able to find Middleton and Mary, then fights Middleton, who falls over a cliff. Burke then wins Mary's embrace.

Spoiled, lazy Harold Chester Winthrop Gordon finds that he has been disinherited, barred from seeing his sweetheart, and expelled from his club. He decides to reform himself and begins by crossing out his first three names with an "x." Thereafter known as "Three X Gordon," he says goodbye to pretty Dorrie Webster and sets out with his friend Archie for the West. Because they are penniless, however, they get only as far as a New Jersey town, where they become farmhands. Shocked at first by the long hours and hard labor, Three X and Archie soon find the work so physically and morally beneficial that they decide to establish a farm for the regeneration of millionaires' sons. The plan is a success, and Three X even makes a man of Dorrie's lazy brother. With the declaration of World War I, Three X proudly leads his clients into his country's service, promising to return to Dorrie.

Upon learning from the lips of a dying friend that his dead wife had been unfaithful to him, respected physician Sylvester Lanyon, his illusions shattered, severs ties to his father Matthew and sweetheart Ella De Fries, Matthews' ward, and departs for London. A year passes, and Sylvester learns that Ella is pledged to marry scoundrel Roderick Usher, who has obtained the elder Lanyon's consent to the match by blackmail. Sylvester, concerned, foils the marriage by intercepting Roderick's forged check and orders him to leave the country. Returning home with Ella, Sylvester discovers that Roderick is actually Matthew's son, the child of the woman whom Matthew divorced when she ran away with another man. Realizing that his mother, wife, sweetheart and father have all transgressed, Sylvester finally accepts his own humanity and forgives Ella, thus embarking upon a new life of compassion.

When Jim Rainey receives a letter from his niece, Hope Deering, who lives in New England, that she will visit his Western ranch and expects romance and adventure, he pastes a photograph of his friend, Percival Montgomery Edwards, on the wanted poster of murderer Steve Logan. Logan is in jail awaiting a trial, so Jim persuades "Monte" to assume Logan's role. Monte moves to Logan's dugout abode, and tantalizes Hope with lurid tales of his misdoings. She falls in love and after he explains that his life as a badman began when he was struck on the head, Jim tells Hope to cure him by hitting his head again. Logan breaks out of prison and, through his window, sees Hope knock Monte unconscious. After Logan abducts her, Monte awakens and pursues them. When he sees Logan threaten to kill Hope to make a posse disperse, Monte places his signet ring at Logan's neck and says it is a gun. Logan surrenders, and even though Hope learns the truth about Monte, she still loves him.

Young John Glenarm's wealthy grandfather leaves him his estate, but the will stipulates that John live in the estate--rumored to be haunted--for one year or it will be forfeited to schoolteacher Marian Deveraux. John moves in and strange and unexplained events begin to occur. He really doesn't want to stay there anymore, but finds that he is falling in love with pretty young Marian, and decides to stick it out. However, there's more to his grandfather's will than John realizes, and it's not long before he finds out just what that is.

A feud over boundaries between the McKinstry and Harrison families, both from Kentucky, but squatting in California in search of gold, has caused Cressy McKinstry to show disdain for Joe Masters, a cousin of the Harrisons, even though she secretly loves him. Nellie Dabney, who left her husband Ben for city-bred John Ford but then was deserted by him, returns and is rejected by Ford, who is now the schoolteacher of the settlement and is attracted to Cressy. After Ben fights Ford and takes Nellie back, Cressy schemes with Ben for him to buy the land in her name. A San Franciscan representative of the legal owner arrives to take possession and provokes a fight at the boundary line which leaves Joe with a bullet in his arm. Cressy proves that the land belongs to her and Joe, who she will soon marry, and the families are reconciled.

The uncle of "Bare-Fisted Gallagher" dies and leaves the Eagle Mine in the San Rafael Valley. When he arrives to take possession of it, he meets and falls for pretty Jem Mason, a woman who dresses like a cowboy and, to show she's a good shot, shoots off his hat. Gallagher doesn't know that Aliso Pete, the owner of the general store, is also interested in Jem. He also doesn't know that Aliso Pete has another secret, one that could cost Gallagher his life.

Bruce Winthrop, disguised as a clerk in the American consulate near the Mongolian border, is actually a secret United States government operative sent to quell a Chinese rebellion led by Tai Chen. His fiancée, Beryl Addison, the daughter of an antique collector, unaware of his mission, cannot understand why Bruce is so attentive to the seductive Tai, and calls off the engagement. Bruce accepts Tai's offer of a position in the interior of Mongolia and learns of revolutionary plans to put Tai on the throne. Tai confesses her love for Bruce and offers him a high position. Bruce succeeds in reading the secret list of revolutionaries, but when the list gets in the hands of Beryl's father, he and Beryl are captured and threatened with death. Bruce rescues them, and the revolutionaries return home. In the end, Tai kills herself, and Winthrop and Beryl are reunited.

Each of the three men living in a lonely, snowbound cabin in Alaska has come north for his own reasons. Burke Marston seeks forgetfulness through drink, and Hugh MacLaren is searching for gold, but Evan Mears' reason remains a mystery. A weird cry outside leads them to a girl half-buried in the snow who has lost her reason and her memory. The efforts of the three men to help her regain her faculties seem fruitless until Burke tells her the story of the lawyer who years earlier had cheated his mother out of her fortune. The girl then reveals that Mears recently has had her innocent brother sent to prison, and Mears, after fighting with Burke, flees to New York. The others follow and finally capture him. After Mears confesses that the girl's brother is innocent and that he is the lawyer who robbed Burke's mother, he is sent to prison, and the girl and her brother return to Alaska to live with Burke.

The Riggs family, newly wealthy from Oklahoma oil, move to an estate in Ossining, New York, adjoining that of eligible bachelor Stephen Van Courtlandt, who wants to avoid marriage. Mrs. Riggs, anxious to break into society, wants her daughter Barbara to marry Stephen. While Stephen is fishing, an escaped convict from Sing Sing, Chimmy the Cricket, convinces him to exchange clothes so that he can escape the pursuing guards. Pursued, Stephen climbs into Barbara's bedroom window and Barbara, excited to be able to reform a criminal, gives Stephen her butler's clothes to wear. When Mrs. Riggs enters and Stephen explains who he is, she says that they must announce their engagement immediately to protect Barbara's reputation, which they do, although Barbara still believes that Stephen is a convict. After Stephen is suspected of stealing Mrs. Rigg's jewels, the Cricket helps Stephen expose the real thief, and Barbara and Stephen, who have fallen in love, prepare to marry.

An international gang of crooks, the Holmans, steal a coded paper and send for their London agent, John Burnham, to come to New York to decipher it, but Cyril Gordon, a United States Secret Service agent, impersonates Burnham and retrieves the paper. A taxi meant for Burnham takes Gordon to a church where a George Hayne, Burnham's real identity, is to marry Celia Hathaway, who has not seen Hayne in 15 years. Remembering that he is to "stop at nothing" to save the code, Gordon marries the rich, pretty Celia and leaves with her on a honeymoon train through Pennsylvania, followed by one of the crooks. Celia berates Gordon for blackmailing her into marriage, but is pleasantly surprised by his character. After some adventures escaping from the crooks, they genuinely fall in love. In Washington, the code is delivered and the thieves captured. After Gordon reveals his secret, the couple acknowledges their desire to stay married.

Dan Burke, newly-arrived in the Yukon, is ridiculed as a tenderfoot when he attempts to find the pocket of flat gold (gold that is black, soft, and flat "like coins from the mints of hell") which Old Man Chaudiare, to keep its location secret, has not claimed. After Dan and his dog team encounter a blizzard, they are saved when Chaudiare and his daughter Aline hear the dogs howl. As Aline nurses Dan, they fall in love, even though he thinks that her mother is an Indian. After Dan thrashes Clay Hibbing, who earlier attacked Aline for refusing to disclose the mine's location, Hibbing and his pal Reirdon find the mine. Dan, although suspected of committing Hibbing's murder of Reirdon, also discovers the mine and races against Hibbing to claim it for Chaudiare. Hibbing freezes to death, Chaudiare makes Dan his partner, Dan is found innocent of killing Reirdon, and Aline, upon learning that she is not a half-breed, marries Dan.

After Alice Dane, a poor English schoolteacher, witnesses Sir John Turnbull throw an adversary over a cliff, Turnbull offers her money and marriage, because a wife cannot testify against her husband. To support her invalid father and for desired luxuries, Alice accepts, but she finds her husband humiliating and insulting. When Bobby Ralston, the superintendent of Turnbull's South African mines, reports that Turnbull's interests are endangered by a Zulu uprising, Turnbull takes Alice to Africa. After Turnbull shoots an emissary of Zulu chief Cetygoola carrying a flag of truce, Alice is taken hostage, to be burned at the stake unless the messenger's killer is offered. Knowing that Ralston loves Alice, Turnbull dares him to offer himself, which he does, but the Zulus realize he is not the guilty party. During the Zulus' subsequent attack, Ralston and Alice escape to an observation balloon. Reinforcements defeat the Zulus, but Cetygoola hides and kills Turnbull. Ralston and Alice are then free to marry.

A convict being transported to Australia from England in the 1800's saves the life of a young girl during a shipwreck. Ten years later in England, she meets a brilliant attorney with secrets in his past.

When Mrs. Chapman Price, the daughter of wealthy socialite Mrs. Janney, quarrels with her husband over her mounting gambling debts, he packs his suitcase and moves out. Desperate to pay off her debts, Mrs. Price rifles her mother's safe but discovers that its contents are missing. The blame points to Chapman Price and Esther Maitland, Mrs. Janney's private secretary. When the Price baby is kidnapped and held for ransom, Esther is suspected of that crime, too. Only Dick Ferguson, a neighbor, believes in Esther's innocence. After several misadventures, Esther discovers that the kidnapping was perpetrated by the detective whom Mrs. Price hired to unravel the burglary, which was committed by Ferguson's servant. Thus cleared, Esther joins the man who believed in her, and the Prices are reconciled.

Joe Smith Jr., the son of a millionaire, is challenged by his father to earn his own living instead of depending on his father's money. One year later Joe is broke, dirty, homeless and hanging out with other derelicts on a New York City park bench. A chance meeting with businessman Ned Stervens results in Joe being invited to stay in Stevens' house for a week, to make Stevens' point to his acquaintance Frank Overton---a shady stockbroker--that given a chance, even a tramp like Joe can better himself. Joe finds himself in love with Stevens' sister Lucy and unwittingly becomes party to a scheme by Overton to swindle Lucy out of her money.

Jerry Jerome, a rich young Wall Street broker, follows doctor's orders and goes West to relieve strain. He stops at the ranch of Jim Yancy, then agrees to be the maid of the farmhouse to earn his keep, because he is attracted to Yancy's daughter Ruth. After a series of stagecoach robberies by a masked man wearing a blue bandanna, Jerry, the new man in town, is suspect. When he finds a blue bandanna in Yancy's barn, he decides to investigate, and discovers that Yancy is an ex-convict being blackmailed into helping with the robberies. Jerry dresses up like the bandit to stop the stage and warn the driver of an intended robbery, but he is arrested himself. He convinces the sheriff to let him out so he can bring in the real thief. Yancy accidentally shoots his former partner Ben Cowan, who confesses to being the stagecoach robber. Jerry and Ruth marry and go to New York.