In a jewelry store, Grace Norris, a wealthy girl, unnoticed by the salesman, absent-mindedly takes a vanity case. She is seen by Fred Wright, who thinks she stole it.
Marianna Miller, who together with her sister Sarah pounds the pavements, looking for a job. After a period of starvation and deprivation Marianna is hired as secretary to duplicitous businessman Philip Hancock.
The son of a poor fisherman and the daughter of a wealthy landlord fall in love, but meet with obstacles to being together. Their happiness meets with objection by her father, who intends to permanently separate them.
During World War I, John Bowman, the captain of a tramp steamer, refuses to allow his wife and daughter Shirley to accompany him on a long voyage because he fears that the ship may be torpedoed. Before his departure, he entrusts his life insurance policy to shipping agent Sam Bullard, who, unknown to John, once courted Mrs. Bowman. Shirley, a clairvoyant, has a vision in which her father's ship is torpedoed, and the next day, Sam reports that the ship has been sunk and John killed.
Upon seeing millionaire Lee Brooks's picture in the paper, Julie Le Fabrier, a romantic young model in Madame Swan's dress shop, immediately falls in love with him. Soon afterwards, Julie is sent to the Grand Tides Hotel to deliver a dress to Madame Ricardo, an attractive young woman whose bills are paid by Lee's lovestruck father, Mason Brooks. Having seen her husband, whom she believed to be in South America, on the grounds, Madame Ricardo deserts the hotel, so Julie dons the gown and masquerades as Mason's mistress.
Angela, a lovely young woman of eighteen, lives with her grandmother in Virginia but knows very little about her mother, Lady Eldone, who after the death of Angela's father, moved to Europe and married an English army captain. When Captain Eldone is reported dead, Lady Eldone returns to the United States determined to marry a wealthy man.
The TARDIS crew lands in the Himalayas of Cathay in 1289, their ship badly damaged, and are picked up by Marco Polo's caravan on its way along the fabled Silk Road to see the Emperor Kublai Khan. The story concerns the Doctor and his companions' attempts to thwart the machinations of Tegana, who attempts to sabotage the caravan along its travels through the Pamir Plateau and across the treacherous Gobi Desert, and ultimately to assassinate Kublai Khan in Peking, at the height of his imperial power.
Orphaned after the death of their mother, Nancy Grimm and her baby sister Ellen are taken to the country where Ellen is adopted by the wealthy Walsh family. Nancy keenly feels the loss of her sister, and when the judge rules that she cannot visit Ellen without permission, she throws herself onto a bench, winning the sympathy of young attorney Chester Noble. Nancy is then placed in the Wick's home where she is treated as a servant. Miserable, Nancy cuts off her hair and, dressed as a boy, runs away.
Framed by police inspector Finch and his managing editor, R. H. Steadman, to cover up their own crooked work, reporter John Mull languishes in prison until he escapes, determined to wreak vengeance.
A poor shopgirl is offered a "good time" for a week by the son of her employer. She accepts, but the offer is misunderstood by her brother, who informs the girl's parents of her "fling."
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.
When Marie Louise, the daughter of the town factor, returns home from school, Julio Sandoval, a reckless young half-breed ruled by his animal instincts, develops a passion for the girl, even though she is engaged to Captain McKeever of the mounted police. Meeting Marie when she is alone in the woods one day, the half-breed carries her to his cabin on the mountain top where he collapses from an attack of mountain fever brought on by overexertion.
Louis and August Siever, the twins sons of a German father and American mother, are traveling in Europe when war breaks out. August joins the Kaiser's army, but Louis, a supporter of the United States, is practically made a prisoner in Berlin for a year while he tries to prove his American citizenship. After a violent confrontation with Louis, August steals his brother's passport and leaves for New York with Gerda Anderson, a German spy.
After Fred, an orphan raised by his wealthy Uncle Oliver marries Clara over his uncle's objections, the two men become estranged. When Fred and Clara's child Paul is six years old, Fred insists that his uncle pay them a visit over Christmas. Uncle Oliver, a very lonely old man, begrudgingly accepts but refuses to behave amicably towards Clara or Paul.
Drifters Tom Williams and Joe Morgan have a chance meeting with the sheriff's daughter and learn that her brother Jim is being held prisoner in Line Hollow by Wolf, who aspires to be the next sheriff. They aid the sheriff in finding the outlaw gang and rescuing Jim. Tom decides to stop drifting and stay near the sheriff's daughter.
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.
Newly elected police court judge John Fairbrother is impassioned when it comes to the laws affecting the dives and cabarets of the city, and promises equal justice for all.
When young inventor Bob Moore fails in his efforts to provide his father, a safe manufacturer, with a lock that is burglar proof, he contacts The "Eel," the most talented safecracker in the city, to offer him a job in his factory. The Eel, deciding to go straight, accepts the offer, but when he later learns that Irene Hardin has been given a valuable necklace by her father, The Eel plans one last job to secure Irene's pearls.
While waiting in a hotel lobby for instructions from his government, Ludwig Schumann, an agent of the Black Legion, is enchanted by Marion Washburn, the daughter of a Texas senator. As he is about to speak to the girl, Schumann is stunned to see a young American enter who could be his double. The American is James Walbert, whom Schumann's contact mistakes for the agent. The contact passes to Walbert a photograph of a woman spy, Wanda Bartell, whom the agent is to meet aboard a steamer. Walbert realizes the mistake and determines to protect his country.
Nancy Glenn is a pupil in Pop Hogland's school for crooks. When, attired as a boy named "Spider", Nancy fails at her lessons as a pickpocket, Pop decides to pair her with Pliny Drew, a graduate thief and swindler.