John Burton

Laura Nesbit, daughter of old Dr. Nesbit and belle of the younger social set in the town of Harvey, plans to marry Grant Adams, the editor of the local paper, until she flirts with rising but unethical lawyer Tom VanDorn to arouse her beau's jealousy. A saddened Grant is drawn into an affair with town siren Margaret Muller, with whom he has an illegitimate son. On the rebound, Laura marries VanDorn and Margaret weds attorney Henry Fenn. History repeats itself when Laura's husband becomes infatuated with Margaret, which breaks up both marriages. Meanwhile, Grant has given up his newspaper to become a foreman in the mines. After he is injured in an explosion, Grant is taken to the Nesbit home, where Laura's care restores his health. When Grant's little son is shot and killed during a strike, he becomes so overwrought with grief that he confesses the boy's parentage to Laura, who forgives his past and they begin a new life together.

M'liss, a feisty young girl in a mining camp, falls for Charles Gray, the school teacher. Charles is implicated in a murder of which he is innocent, and the two must fight to save him from a lynching.

While burgling a mansion, Blackie is interrupted by little Joey, who has been awakened from his slumbers. Blackie gently orders the kid to return to bed, but Joey refuses to do so unless Blackie helps him say his prayers. Thus is formed a strong friendship between Blackie and his "little pal," inspiring our raffish hero to rescue Joey's mother Rosemary Theby from a scandalous situation.

John Trimble has embezzled and obtains another identity by having a mutilated body buried in his place. He is later arrested for murdering himself. During the trial his mother, before dying from shock, asks him to keep his identity secret since his wife is now married to the Governor and expecting a child.

In a mining town a young orphan girl is engaged to miner Bashful Bill. "The Greaser" ,a menacing Mexican, terrorizes the town's residents. A stranger arrives, accidentally shoots himself, and is cared for by the girl. He falls in love with her, unaware of her engagement. When The Greaser's actions escalate it leads to a confrontation during which the stranger and Greaser kill each other, saving Bashful Bill and the girl.

When the third partner in their small Cape Cod trading business dies, Shad Gould and Zoeth Hamilton adopt his little daughter Mary-'Gusta. After several years, the two old salts decide that Mary should be properly educated and send her to an exclusive school in Boston, telling her that her father left her a large fortune. In Boston, Mary meets Crawford Smith, but their happiness together is threatened when she learns that he is the son of Edgar Fuller (alias Smith), a scoundrel who had run off with Zoeth's wife and stolen his money.

Stella Benton, a young society girl who has lost her beautiful voice through the death of her father, goes to live with her brother Charles, in the lumber camp. Charles Benton is having a struggle to make both ends meet, and when his cook quits, he makes his sister do the work for the hundred men in the lumber camp. Jack Fyfe, a neighboring lumber man, meets Stella and gradually falls in love with her, but love is not reciprocated. Seeing that she is being overworked, Fyfe offers to marry her, in spite of the fact that she does not love him. A child is born of this loveless marriage, and the couple are reasonably happy, until Walter Monahan, a wealthy lumberman, begins to make love to Stella.