Colorado lawyer Bill Brent, falsely accused and imprisoned for a murder committed by his partner, escapes to Canada with his cellmate where they become wealthy in the trapping business. When out of a trapping expedition the pair rescue Nita, the only survivor of a boating accident. In time Bill and she fall in love and marry then Bill makes the unwise decision to try to return to see his elderly mother.
Ne'er-do-well Joe Louden scandalizes his small town and especially the proper Judge Pike. But through the love of young Ariel Taber, Joe shows the town who the real scoundrel is.
Madame Gerve is a famous opera singer at the prime donna at the Opera Comique in Paris. When the French Prime Minister proposes marriage, however, she refuses and then sings at a benefit for war orphans. It's there that she encounters two men from her past--Karl Wertz, the German ambassador to France whom she knew during the war when he was a German officer and his unit occupied her village, and Phillippe Sardonia, a Frenchman who is her former lover. Both men try to rekindle their past relationships with her, but she has a secret that she doesn't want either man to know about. A lost film.
Some valuable pearls are stolen in China and transported to San Francisco. Jane Hampton learns that her father is the smuggler, and that police are on his trail. Under pressure, she takes the pearls to a Chinese man named Woo Fong.
Professor Duane, an ethnologist, and his assistant, Roscoe Harding, plan a journey into the wilds of Hindustan. Harding is in love with Lydia, the daughter of Professor Duane, and they are engaged to be married. Lieutenant Tavish, a British army officer, is attracted to Lydia and plans to take her away from Harding by fair means or foul.
When young Eva Stanley comes home from college, she finds that her mother is deeply involved in the movement to rescue "wayward" girls. Eva's boyfriend John Gilbert is sent west on a government job, and Eva finds herself lonely and neglected. She is lured onto the yacht of lecherous Leo Spencer, the dissolute brother of the district attorney.
Macbeth usurps the Scottish throne by murdering his predecessor.
A Civil War spy story in which a girl and the officer she loves find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict.
Rupert returns to his Canadian home after five years, an officer of the Royal Mounted Police, under orders to capture some illicit distillers. Jacques, an invalid, being unable to make farming pay, has, unknown to his sister, Philomel, been induced by Antoine, a suitor for the hand of Philomel, to join him in the illicit whiskey traffic.
When Jasper Leigh calls on Professor Hunt to ask for his daughter, Mary's, hand in marriage, the Professor tells him that the girl is too young. He also tells Jasper that Mary believes her mother dead, but that she had eloped with another man. Leigh encounters a ragged and worn woman, who proves to be Mary's mother.
A dramatic love triangle between two women and a man.
Jane thinks she has witnessed a murder and the suspect is arrested; she later learns the truth and saves him from hanging.
Joe Grant is the renegade husband of Lengua, a beautiful South African native girl. John Lewis is a South American trader, living with his daughter Grace. Ned Singleton helps Lewis in his work. Grant steals from Lewis' trading post and orders the abused Lengua to aid him in secreting the loot, and she refuses. She tells Lewis of Grant's misdeeds.
When Jimmie Collins, a pickpocket, is arrested and brought before Captain Callahan of the Tenth, he is surprised because he is lodged in a cell. Jimmie claims acquaintanceship with Bill McFarlin, a corrupt political boss, and he sneers at Captain Callahan when he is ordered to be placed behind the cell bars.
Billie Benton, a cub reporter, goes to the home of Violet Reynolds, a society girl and settlement worker, and asks for an interview, which is refused. Billie returns to the reportorial room, expresses his failure and the city editor assigns Ned Pelton, another reporter, to get the story.
Archie Sheldon, determining to go to New York City, is given a letter by his mother to Thatcher Thole, Gotham's most unscrupulous financier. She tells her son that Thole is an old friend of the family, and will undoubtedly give him a start in life.
A mother loses her sanity when she loses her child. Her husband brings home a newly adopted child, and she regains her health.
An orphaned young woman rejects her appointed suitor and falls in love with her guardian.
When Wade Cameron, chairman of the Better Plays Society, stops the production of actress Gilda Lamont's first stage success, she attempts to revenge herself by affecting another personality and earning his confidence. He assigns her a role in an improvised production of a new play as an unknown actress, derails her attempt to expose him, and ends by winning her heart.
A widow threatens her rebellious daughter that she will remarry if the girl does not behave at school.