Bill Merritt and his pal, Chewin' Charlie, notice a touring car passing them on the road. Soon the car stops, and the party sets out after a jackrabbit wanted by an elderly lady in the car. Bill, realizing the brakes have slipped on a downgrade, rescues the runaway car and its occupant, Mrs. Gordon, and wins the lady's admiration. Invited to the hotel of millionaire mine owner Andrew Gordon, Bill becomes interested in his daughter, Cleo, but is told that the man who aspires to be her husband must possess wealth. That night Bill overhears a plot to take over a strip of land between Gordon's mine and that of his enemy Tom Middleton; Bill and Charlie set out to stake their claim, and after subduing "Fraction" Jack, they register the claim. Bill persuades Gordon to buy out his claim and saves Charlie from claim jumpers.
Ranchmen try to play a joke on one of their associates by signing his name to a letter addressed to Sarah Smith, who has advertised in a matrimonial journal. A mix-up occurs on the day of the arrival of the lady when a younger woman, sent to buy stock, also appears on the scene and is mistaken for the prospective bride.
Rise, fall and execution of John Brown, fanatic abolitionist.
When the Great Chief's body is placed before the funeral pile by his mourning braves, his sacred blanket is covered over it and a sentinel left to watch that this, his last resting place, is not desecrated. The tribe has just departed for their village when a mountain outlaw appears and succeeds in stealing the blanket, having given the sentinel doctored whiskey. When the Indians discover this they exile the unfaithful sentinel until he can recover the blanket.
Young lawyer Tod Jackson arrives in pioneer Kansas to visit his prosperous rancher friends the Daltons, just as the latter are in danger of losing their land to a crooked development company. When Tod tries to help them, a faked murder charge turns the Daltons into outlaws, but more victims than villains in this fictionalized version. Will Tod stay loyal to his friends despite falling in love with Bob Dalton's former fiancée Julie?
Buffalo is banished to the wilderness after playing a nasty practical joke on his rancher father. During his exile, Billy meets and falls in love with pretty Patricia Farris, who sadly rejects him when he tries to steal a kiss.
Bob Warner sells some cattle to two men who later drug him and rob him of the sale money. He takes a job with a medicine show as a barker, offering a reward to any spectator to last three rounds in fighting him. While in the ring, he notices in the audience the two men who stole his money. He knocks out his contestant, pursues the crooks, and recovers the money.
The efforts of an elder brother, who is sheriff, to save the younger from a lynching, the latter having been falsely accused of shooting a girl.
A ranch foreman wins a series of events at a frontier day rodeo.
A story of greed and lust driven by gold fever. Rapacious Kate Kent abandons her daughter Betty to run off with Tom Romaine, her husband’s killer during the Gold Rush. A quindecinnial later Betty heads to California and partners with Tennessee, a freind of her father’s, in the Golden Princess Mine. Kate and Romaine try and dupe Betty into believing he is Betty’s father to get control of her portion, but Tennessee reveals the truth and after an attempt on their lives all works out as it should.
Heck Claibourne has been involving young Russ Whitely in his cattle rustling schemes, and when they are nearly caught by Sheriff Doug Barrett and deputy O'Hara, their cohort, Luke, shoots and kills O'Hara.
Jack Marston is the sheriff of a western town and Jennie, his sister, is postmistress and operator at the stage station. Among the inhabitants of the town is an Indian breed. An outcast from his own people, he is looked down upon by the race of his adoption, although his education has included a college course. The express company has posted a reward for the apprehension of one Apache Kid and his band of fellow robbers. The next night the band arrive in the town and hold up one of the main saloons. Peggy, a dance hall girl, takes the fancy of the leader, the Apache Kid, and he abducts her and takes her with them when they make their escape.
The sheriff, Dan Beckham, and his deputy, Bud Cameron, are posting signs offering a reward for the capture of Cheyenne Harry, accused of holding up a Wells Fargo shipment. Shortly after they have tacked the sign to a tree Cheyenne Harry removes it.
A serio-comic tale shows wherein the East and the West strangely mingle despite Kipling's declaration that: "Never the twain shall meet."
Before dying, a man's friend asks him to do his best to keep the truth that he was a robber from his son.
A reformed outlaw give up the girl because of his past.
Major Carter, owner of the Sunset mines, reads of a reward offered for Cheyenne Harry if captured. The butler gives him a telegram telling of the flooding of several shafts in his mine. He is soon on the way to the mine in his car. Ruth, his daughter, follows in her roadster.
The Drifter is a 1917 Western short.
Billy Carter and two Mexicans, Cuteo and Estaban, are smugglers of opium which they bring across the border from Mexico into the United States. The authorities are unable to apprehend them, so "Pinnacle" Bill and "Cheyenne" Harry of the Arizona Ranger Service are sent to assist the sheriff, Dan Beckham, and the inspectors in their search.
John Gregg and his daughter Mary, on their way to Burro Springs, a boom mining town, lose their way and stumble into "Jawbone," a dilapidated town. Here they meet Mike Hernandez, a good-looking bad man. Mary, thinking Mike a gentleman, takes a liking to him. "Cheyenne" Harry, a homely looking good man, comes to Jawbone and Mary believes him to be a weak character. He becomes fascinated with her. Gregg hires Mike Hernandez to guide him to Burro Springs, displaying his small store of gold when paying Hernandez. Later, Gregg and his party become lost in the desert, and run out of water.