Fire and Steel

The Strings of Steel is a silent Action serial. Episode titles: 1. The Voice on the Wire 2. The First Central 3. Fighting for Love 4. The Power of Might 5. Kings of the Wire 6. Voice of the Continent 7. Telephone Poles 8. War of the Wire 9. When Lightning Strikes 10. Love and Victory.

Anita Gray is the spoiled daughter of a millionaire. Returning home from a party, her car breaks down and she is picked up by a stranger, who sells her his car for a diamond bracelet. The car has been stolen and the police arrest her, but she escapes and takes refuge on a freighter bound for China. She has no money and has to work her way there. Her father learns of her destination and hires Hamlin to bring her safely home.

Before the Civil War, George Harris, a Yankee schoolteacher, takes charge of a southern country school. He is attracted by Nellie Gardner, his prettiest pupil, but his attentions are resented by her big brother Phil, also a pupil. They quarrel and a fight ensues, in which the teacher gets the better of Phil. Nellie will not forgive Harris for striking her brother.

Old Captain Bill and his wife have an only son, whom they idolize. He loses all his money at gambling and drinking, and determines to do better in the city. After a short absence he writes his people that he has secured a good position, is saving money, and will be home before long. A year or two later he arrives in town and on his way to his home passes the old saloon he used to patronize. He cannot resist the temptation, and goes in. He falls in with a lot of bad fellows and is robbed. Ashamed to go home, he ships on board a sailing vessel.

Based on the poem of the same name by Alexander Pushkin.

Before he can avenge a crooked card game, Dan Carrington suffers heart failure and dies in his chair. John Tralee, the cheater, feels a pang of guilt when he discovers that he has taken all of Carrington's money and adopts the dead man's little girl, Lois. The girl grows up and the gambling hall becomes her second home.

Billie and Dollie are very much in love with each other, and they declare their love under the cherry trees. In later years Billie receives news of his appointment as a cadet at West Point: he promises to return to Dollie as soon as he graduates and claim her for his wife.

John Hampstead gives up his career as an actor and his actress sweetheart, Marian Dounay, to become a minister in a western town. Marian appears, and failing to win him back she tries to ruin his reputation. Hampstead is accused of stealing some jewelry though actually he is protecting the scapegrace brother of his current sweetheart, Bessie.

During Nick Austin's imprisonment, his wife passes away. Before she dies, she writes a note to her husband, asking him to put her little girl in the care of an orphan asylum. Mrs. Downes, while bringing some of her dead daughter's clothes to the asylum, takes a fancy to Nina Austin and adopts her.

Eva and Blanche are inseparable sisters living with a maiden aunt. But Eva marries a suitor named John, to Blanche’s great dismay, and starts married life in a nearby apartment. Blanche lives with the newlyweds for a while, but her constant presence soon irritates the bridegroom. Feeling unwanted, Blanche returns to her aunt’s home despite Eva’s entreaties. Later, when Eva gives birth to a child, the sisters are reconciled.

Employed as secretary to Howard Abele, Marjorie Abbott attracts the attention of Sydney, her employer's son, who falls desperately in love with her. Mr. Abele is strenuously opposed to their marriage and he quarrels with his son. Marjorie has a half-brother, Dave, who is of an inventive turn of mind.

An American agent exchanges places in prison with a condemned British officer and brother of a woman he greatly admires and goes to the gallows.

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.

Amy Lindel, a church choir singer, goes to the city to pursue a singing career, but finds herself only able to get cabaret gigs. She then becomes entangled in a situation involving stolen diamonds, and is saved by the "good guy" whom she later marries.

A respectable Paris jeweller becomes engaged to a celebrated performer of the Montmartre cafes.

Richard Gordon is an aspiring composer who can't get arrested in his field of endeavor. Upon meeting nightclub singer Mary Talbot, Gordon is inspired to write his greatest melody. The song catches the ear of impresario George Monroe and before long Gordon has scaled the heights of fame and fortune. Mary despairs that she's been forgotten.

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.

Phyllis Narcissa, an underpaid children's librarian, eagerly accepts a dinner invitation from Horace de Guenther, one of her patrons, and happily entertains his invalid wife. Later, Mrs. de Guenther encourages Phyllis to meet with Mrs. Harrington, a dying rich woman whose son Allan, once a vigorous young man, was paralyzed in an auto accident. When Mrs. Harrington proposes to the librarian that she marry and take care of Allan in exchange for his wealth, Phyllis reluctantly consents. While struggling to cheer up the eternally gloomy Allan, Phyllis welcomes the visits of his friend, a doctor who informs her that her husband's paralysis may be psychosomatic.

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.

Mrs. Standing, an old-fashioned country mother, sacrifices to put her son John through college so that he might have a better life. Upon completing school, John goes to the city where his financial success blinds him to the basic values taught to him by his mother.