While in Europe, Chaddie Green, a society girl, discovers that she has been left penniless. She returns to the United States and meets Duncan MacKail, who is equally broke though he owns grainland in the West. Duncan and Chaddie are married and go west to homestead. Duncan hires Ollie, a Swedish caretaker, who frightens Chaddie. When business takes Duncan away, Chaddie goes to take care of Percy Woodhouse, an Englishman who has become ill at his place fifteen miles away. Her horse runs away, and she is forced to spend the night there. She sleeps under a wagon, but Duncan is nevertheless angry and jealous.
Ranger Job "Blue Streak" McCoy helps a miner and his pretty young daughter who are trying to protect their valuable mine from a gang leader who wants to take it.
Our hero is mistaken for a bandit. Al's girl Nancy at first believes him to be guilty, but he manage to convince her that the real bandit is McDonald.
For Nita Valyez, who is half-Spanish and half-Irish, Carlos represents potential violence and danger, two things to which she is both attracted and repelled. In contrast, she has only a passing interest in Big Jim, the town's honest, good-hearted sheriff. Then, after Carlos kills a faro dealer, he forces Nita to make an escape with him.
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.
Jack Darling of the North West Mounted Police is ordered to track down and arrest murderer Alec Young, whose girl, Dancing Pete, performs in the Nugget dance hall. En route to Nugget, Jack meets Hope Ross, who is caring for her sister's baby. Although the two fall in love, the outlook for a happy romance appears hopeless, because he believes that she is a married mother, and she thinks that he is an outlaw.
As a baby, John Ermine is stolen from a wagon train by the Crow Indians and is adopted by Chief Fire Bear. John grows to manhood, ignorant that he is a white man until his parentage is disclosed to him by Crooked Bear, a white hermit who is on friendly terms with the Crows. Crooked Bear teaches John the language and customs of the white man's civilization, impressing upon him that it is his sacred responsibility to keep peace between the white men and the Indians.
Harley Hennage, a gambler, loves Marie but remains silent when he realizes that she is in love with Oliver Corblay, a prospector. After Corblay and Marie marry, Harley moves to the distant town of San Pasqual and does not see his old sweetheart until her husband is killed while staking a claim in the desert.
Most of the scenes are laid in a parrot-and-monkey country in South America, a land where "it is always after dinner." The Llano Kid, a Texas bad man, flees there from justice. The consul persuades him to play the long-lost son of a Castilian family, and tattoos a coat of arms on the back of the Kid's hand to make the deception complete. The Kid is taken into the household, trusted and loved by the gladdened mother. For the first time he has a home. The romance develops. And when the time comes to rob and flee he has too much manhood to break the loving mother's heart. The surprise comes when it is revealed that the man the Kid killed in Texas was the real son.
Returning to House of a Thousand Candles a mystery unfolds involving two lookalike girls...or is there only one very crafty one?
Hired ranch hand Tex Smith is smitten with Lucy Blake, who lives in the cattle settlement of Marco. Meanwhile, Indian chief Brave Bear despises the encroachment of white people and conspires with Sam Hardman to steal the town's cattle during a rodeo.
Cal Stanley goes undercover as a beef buyer in order to catch the gang responsible for stealing the area's cattle.
Cal Roberts can ride anything with four legs. He enters the contests held at big rodeo. He wins all honors and meets a girl who races horses to help her father clear pressing debts. Complications follow, but Cal wins the girl.
In the Old West Charles Garvin and Clarice Winslow are happily engaged. One day artist, Ed Gardner arrives seeking lodging and is welcomed into Clarice's home, where he meets the young cowboy. However, when Charles must depart for a round-up, Ed begins to charm Clarice, who seems amused by his company and a triangle develops.
A US Army officer is sent undercover into the hills of Mexico's Baja California region to find and bring down the madman Crando and his group of crazed followers, who are setting up their own criminal empire spreading from Mexico into the United States.
A western settlement of pioneer descendants is threatened with the loss of its water supply through the encroachments of nearby townspeople.
Gold miner Edd Denmeade loves Lucy Watson, the sister of the official mining claim recorder. Denmeade suspects Watson of killing his father, who after a poker game was shot by a gambler "who shuffles with one hand." The real murderer, Sam Spralls, has convinced Watson that he killed Denmeade and threatens to expose him unless Watson assigns him all the gold claims. Spralls assembles a band of killers to jump the claims when Watson complies. Eventually, Denmeade learns the identity of the killer when he sees Spralls shuffle a deck of cards. He forms a vigilante party and rids the community of Spralls and his gang.
Returning to his father's cattle ranch after the excitement of serving in combat overseas, Bud McGraw becomes restless, and his father decides to send him to an old friend who commands the Border Police in Texas. On the way he meets Peggy Hughes, accompanying her Uncle Graham, a customs inspector, and he retrieves her hat from the rails of a train. At the headquarters, numerous scrapes and fights win him the admiration of, and friendship with, the men. Lazaro, a Secret Service agent, invites Mrs. Graham and Peggy, who are staying at the border station, for an automobile ride, and they are captured by bandits and held for ransom. Bud and his pals deliver the ransom and discover that Lazaro is the bandit chief. Lazaro refuses to release Peggy, but a jealous rival, Nita de Garma, causes his downfall and shoots him as the Border Police arrive to rescue the party.
Three outlaws fleeing a posse through the desert come upon a dying woman and her baby in a wagon. Before she passes away, she makes the men promise to take care of her baby and get it safely through the desert.
A foppish Londoner joins the Royal Canadian Mounties and tries to break a smuggling ring.