James Brieson, a wealthy stockbroker, ruins Hutch Valiant, who soon after dies of the shock. Valiant's son Steele returns from the Northwest, where he won his fortune, just before his father's death and decides to devote his life to the cause of revenge.

Miner Dan Stuyvesant finally strikes it rich, but on his way to report his claim, he is shot. When Jack Dedlow, the head of a gang of outlaws, hears this news, he rides to Stuyvesant's cabin intending to secure the claim for himself. There the outlaws find Stuyvesant's daughter Hilda, the sweetheart of Tom Flynn, and are about to draw cards for her when Dago Sam pulls out his guns and spirits her out the door. Because Tom is his only friend, Sam determines to protect Hilda from the gang, but when Tom suspiciously questions his intentions toward Hilda, Sam decides to live up to the town's poor opinion of him.

Robert "Bob" Wesley horrifies his father, Admiral John Wesley of the Naval Advisory Board, by failing his examination at the Annapolis naval academy. Bob seizes the chance to redeem himself, however, when he overhears Hanson, the butler, plotting with German agent Count Von Ornstorff to deliver his father's plans for the Atlantic coastal defenses to German Baroness Von Hulda. In Baltimore, Bob meets the baroness' ship and, with the aid of an old college professor, makes her his prisoner. Having impersonated a woman in the college play, Bob disguises himself as the baroness, rendezvous with the spies, and obtains the plans.

Dick Evans is the corrupt boss of a rough-and-tumble munitions town called Powderville. He hires his friend, Jack Ripley, to establish a newspaper, intending merely to further his own financial ambitions; however, Jack envisions The Trumpet as an instrument of good and soon persuades Dick to clean up Powderville.

Rosarita, a young relative of the powerful Doña Perfecta in the small Spanish village of Orbajosa, has been betrothed since infancy to her cousin, Pepe Rey Don Jose, although the two have never met. When Pepe comes to visit Rosarita, she immediately falls in love with him, but his offhand remark about the lack of enterprise in the small town alienates Doña Perfecta, and the old woman becomes determined to prevent the marriage.

Muriel Flemming secretly marries Graydon Burton before he heads West to make his fortune. Later, when he is about to board a train to return to his wife, he is accused of a murder that was actually committed by crooked attorney Herman Slade.

American heiress Bettina Vanderpoel departs for England to visit her sister Rosalie and her impoverished nobleman husband Sir Nigel Anstruthers. Arriving at their dilapidated estate, Betty finds that Nigel not only has wasted Rosalie's fortune but has treated his wife and their little son cruelly. Betty jumps into action promptly repairing the estate with her own money and seeking to offer some relief to her sister by introducing her into English society. In the process, she meets Lord Mount Dunstan, a proud but penniless nobleman who lives in the adjacent estate. Strongly attracted to Betty, he nonetheless avoids her so as not to appear a fortune hunter. When an epidemic breaks out among the farmers it leads to life changing consequences for both sisters and the men in their sphere.

A man in love with a married woman plans to kill her husband. By mistake he kills her brother, and is haunted by the ghost of the murdered brother.

During World War I, Robin Cameron transforms her home on the Scottish seacoast into a hospital for convalescing soldiers. Sidney Carson, who owns the adjoining estate, and Dr. Hyde both love Robin, but she gives her heart to John Hamilton, an American soldier whose ship was sunk off the coast.

The Country Cousin

Forced to wear quaint short dresses and pigtails so that she will inspire her grandfather's sentimental poetry, nineteen-year-old Joy Havenith longs for companions of her own age.

After his brother's death, Arnold Downs, to save the reputation of his brother's sweetheart, Clara Myers, marries her, though he is in love with Sada Block, his employer's daughter. Five years later finds Arnold in business for himself and Block's competitor. The father of the girl never has been able to forgive the young man for giving up his daughter for Clara, and by bribing Arnold's bookkeeper he takes his revenge in driving Downs to the verge of bankruptcy. Clara's child, who is an adept at picture puzzles, takes some torn papers from the waste basket, matches them and shows them to her mother. Clara sees by them how her husband has been underbid by Block. That night she and her father, disguised as robbers, enter Arnold's office and take the traitorous bookkeeper prisoner. They present the evidence to Arnold who is saved from failure, and husband and wife discover that they have come to love one another.