After watching her mother die gradually from a broken heart, Roberta, an illegitimate child, decides to seek vengeance from her father Bradley, who ran away before she was born. Bradley is wealthy now, and so Roberta secures a job as his secretary and schemes to ruin his financial empire.
To support her younger sisters, Polly Vance finds work as a live-in companion to the aging Johanna Webb. Johanna's nephew, Chester Creigg, quarrels with his aunt and severs relations with her, because of her cruel treatment of her new employee, after which Polly returns to her old home. Then, when a fire breaks out at Polly's house, Chester rushes over to save her sisters, but loses his eyesight during the rescue. Convalescing from his burns, Chester learns that Johanna has died and marvels at the similarity between her and the old housemaid who is now taking care of him.
A doctor is called to the home of a young man who wants to enlist in the Army.
Two cowboys, Jim and Johnny Little Bear, discover a rich mine and decide to spend some of their money traveling. Their travels lead them to the kingdom of Queen Sylvia, who is being warred upon by the neighboring monarch Ferdinand because she will not marry him. Sympathetic to the Queen's plight, the cowboys wire to America for the rest of the gang, who arrive just in time to rout Ferdinand's attack.
Jim Crosby, the product of a broken home, becomes a gangster and goes to prison. Meanwhile, Ann Payton, an heiress, converts a saloon into a mission. She is engaged to her father's secretary, Temple Vaughn, a gambler. Jim is released from prison and seeks shelter at the mission. Temple becomes indebted to gambler Phil Johnson and is forced to arrange a crooked poker game involving some of his wealthy friends. Jim overhears the plot and, realizing that Temple is Ann's fiancé, robs the poker game and puts a check Temple forged into Temple's own pocket.
William Newman, a notorious shyster lawyer, in return for a cut of the jewels, agrees to take the case of Morris, a man convicted of stealing diamonds. After gaining possession of the gems, Newman appropriates all of them and then refuses to carry out his share of the deal. Subsequently, Newman, who is attracted to Georgianna, a maid at his boardinghouse, frames the girl on charges of theft and then arranges for her freedom, thus appearing to be her savior.
Sick of life in the city after his fiancée deserts him, Merrill Day goes to the country for a rest with his sister and niece. There he meets Joan, who has lived in the hills for her whole life, and they quickly begin a romance. Grekko, however, a hunchback who has loved Joan for years, convinces her that Merrill's sister is really Merrill's wife.
J. Warren Kerrigan plays the standard Vance hero, a devil-may-care Irish mercenary named Terrence O'Rourke. While knocking about in India, O'Rourke comes into possession of the Pool of Flame, a valuable ruby stolen from a Hindu temple. Typically, whosoever possesses this gem is marked for death, but O'Rourke hopes to beat the odds by utilizing the Pool of Flame to insure, rather than impede, his good luck.
Living up to a reputation for disregarding rules, author Sebastian Maure, having fallen in love with Ghirlaine Bellamy, kidnaps her to get her away from her fiancé, Vincent Pamfort. Sebastian takes Ghirlaine to a small island where, because of the force of his personality, he is treated almost as a god by the natives. During her captivity, Ghirlaine exerts a strong influence on Sebastian, and he vows to make himself into a better man.
Hartley, fascinated by the vampish Leonie, steals and serves a term in prison. Not satisfied with this downfall, Leonie again works her womanly charms upon Dr. Gerald, who is engaged to Johanna, the adopted daughter of Dr. McLean. Learning of the woman's designs on the young doctor, Hartley denounces her in Gerald's presence. In response, Gerald foolishly renounces Johanna and his friendship with Dr. McLean. However, when Leonie discovers that Johanna is her own daughter whom she had deserted as a child, she becomes conscience-stricken, gives up the young man and begs forgiveness.
Upon hearing about a woman dubbed The Huntress because of her wild attention craving ways, Fleming Harcourt decides he can domesticate her and they marry. He takes her to settle down in a mining town, however she soon becomes bored and returns to the city and her lavish parties with plenty of adoring male admirers. Fleming decides to make her jealous by flirting with other women. When the Huntress hears the rumors of his affairs, she soon realizes her one true love is Fleming, and they are happily reunited.
Gubernatorial candidate Walter Croyden is in love with Beatrice, but he acts obnoxiously when he drinks, so she flees to Europe to re-evaluate the relationship.
Story of a pretty girl whose ambitious mother wants to marry her off to an English nobleman. The girl, however, loves a plain American, the son of a wholesale fish dealer. The girl's ineffectual father likes the young American too, but his wife overrides him and the family heads for Honolulu, where the matriarch hopes her daughter will wed the nobleman.
Indore, an Indian woman married to the English Captain Terence Unger is imprisoned by the prince after she gives birth to a baby daughter named Agatha. On his deathbed, Unger beseeches his friend Francis Duane to care for Agatha which Duane does, returning to England with the infant.
After political boss Tim Noland adopts Roy, the infant son of a dead crony, he reluctantly gives the boy up to a doctor who claims that, if raised in an respectable environment, the child will grow into a model citizen. Twenty years later, Roy comes back to live with Tim, and is appalled at his unscrupulous methods of conducting business. Then, he falls in love with Enid Winslow, the daughter of a social reformer who is running for office against Tim. Largely due to Roy's financial support, Winslow wins the election, but, holding a grudge against Tim and anyone connected to him, he refuses to let Enid marry Roy.
When penniless Westie Phillips briefly meets wealthy Martha Gorham, he falls in love, but Martha forgets the encounter. Harry Arnold, courting Martha, invites her out sailing and arranges to have the yacht wrecked near an uncharted island so that he can be alone with her until rescuers arrive. Meanwhile, without knowing Martha is on board, Westie secures a position on the yacht.
George Bell, a wild young man, lives with his rancher father, Thomas Bell, in Paradise Valley, California. When George sells his father's favorite horse, Mr. Bell turns him out, and George becomes a grain salesman in St. Louis. Meanwhile, Polly Martin lives with her father Bill, an ex-businessman who has sunk to day-labor because of his addiction to alcohol. Bill frequently abuses Polly, and when he falls to his death from a high girder, Polly becomes a nurse in the Salvation Army in St. Louis. George falls in love with Polly after he saves her from the advances of a drunk, but she will not marry him because of his wild past.
Just before a big bout, Jimmie, a New York prize fighter, gets a lucky medal from his friend Billy. Herman Marlex, a chronic teller of tall tales informs Jimmie that the medal is really a royal one, worn by the infant Prince of Magonia when he was kidnapped years before. Then, on fight night, Jimmie is knocked senseless. On his way home, Magonian emissaries see him wearing the medal, and so haul him back to the "homeland." Despite his insisting that he is merely a boxer, Jimmie is hailed as the returning prince.
Widower Calvert Paige leaves his baby daughter Johnnie in New York and goes West where he becomes wealthy as a mine owner and newspaperman. Lil Magill, who came to work on his newspaper, becomes infatuated with Paige, as he is with her, and they become lovers. After several years Lil has become a successful author but Paige has tired of her. Their estrangement grows when Lil takes the side of striking miners against him.
Bessie Allen, a girl of the slums, dances in the streets of the Lower East Side of New York to the delight of the crowds. She becomes an orphan when her father, in a drunken stupor, kills her mother, and then himself. Bessie is knocked down by the car of Mrs. Latham, a society matron, who takes an interest in the girl and procures her a job as a dress model.
