The Old Oaken Bucket

Five down-on-their-luck miners in Circle City, Alaska gather at a local hotel, desperate to recoup their depleted finances. MacDonald, a former football star, suggests they buy an insurance policy on whichever man draws the fatal ace. At the end of the year, that man would commit suicide so the remaining four could collect the payout. MacDonald purposefully draws the ace, but soon after discovers a gold vein in his mine. He abandons the suicidal insurance plan and shares his newfound wealth with the group. The fortune also saves a woman named Emily—who traveled to the harsh north to marry a man who turned out to be broke—and she begins a romance with MacDonald instead.

After a whirlwind romance Marion Phillips and Richard Flint marry impulsively without Richard realizing Marion is wealthy. Marion insists upon living in lavish style, but Richard, embittered by the cutting remarks made by his wife's snobbish friends leaves to seek his fortune in the mines. Marion follows but is soon bored. Persuaded by James Cardwell she goes back to her glamorous friends in the city before Richard strikes it rich. Determined to have his revenge upon Cardwell, Richard returns to New York crushing Cardwell on Wall Street but obliterating his wife's wealth in the process. The barrier that existed between them thus resolved; the lovers are reconciled.

Three young men, struggling to find their next meal, encounter a young lady with an injured ankle. One of the men is a doctor, who maintains a charade of success with his wealthy uncle, in which the uncle believes the young man to be well-off and married to a (fictitious) wife named Mary Jane Smith. The young doctor falls in love with the girl of the injured ankle and discovers that her name is Mary Jane Smith.

John Maddox, Sr., who directs the Equity Trust Company with James Buckley, sends Henry Jenkins to steal a note of security from Buckley's safe, and in the struggle that ensues between Buckley and the burglar, the former is killed. Maddox claims that Buckley, failing in his scheme to steal from the company, committed suicide, and John Maddox, Jr., knowing that Buckley's daughter Beatrice is now penniless, breaks his engagement with her. Forced to earn her own living, Beatrice opens a candy factory, and with the help of her loyal friend, Robert Howard, the business becomes so successful that it presents a threat to Maddox's candy company. Maddox sends Jenkins to instigate a strike at Beatrice's factory, but when he is mortally wounded in a fight, he confesses everything. With her father's honor restored and her business flourishing, Beatrice happily agrees to marry Robert.