The fate of a city hangs upon the innocence of a girl charged with murder. A young, inexperienced, but adventurous newspaper reporter is bent on clearing her name by ripping the lid off a corrupt government machine.

Cowboy Tim McCoy becomes an instrument of revenge when he discovers his parents have been killed.

Maria Lopez is the daughter of an American mother and a Mexican father, who is the head of a band of insurgents. As a child, she was kidnapped by her father and raised south of the border to hate gringos. She begins to like them a lot better when, during an escape from some Mexican "Rurals," she crosses the border and is captured by Texas Ranger Danny O'Neil. He lets her go, and they fall in love, but their romance is interrupted when she hears that her father has been captured by Americans.

After Arathea Manning loses her hearing during an epidemic of scarlet fever among the children she teaches, her fiancé Arthur Endicott, who is involved with another woman, complains of always having to shout to make himself heard. An inventor, Gerald Staples, gives Arathea an auriphone, a device to restore her hearing, but one of her problem pupils, in a fit of rage, breaks it. Gerald asks Arathea, whom he calls "The Big Little Person -- small in size, but big in ideas," to be the secretary of his new company marketing the invention. He falls in love with her and plays the piano for her even though she hears only rumblings.

A man impersonates his double to clear himself of a murder conviction.

When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured.

Bud Walton, the village blacksmith, is big and strong physically, but he has not the courage to put his strength to good purpose. All the boys take a slap at him whenever they choose, and Bud makes no attempt to retaliate. This causes his sweetheart, June, to despise him.

Before his niece and ward, Dosia Dale, comes of age, her uncle, who has spent her entire fortune, must think of a way to account for his actions. He proposes marriage, and when Dosia indignantly refuses him, he conspires with his evil friend, Dr. Protheroe, to do away with her. Declaring Dosia insane, the two men lock her up in the doctor's insane asylum, but she manages to drop a note from the window. Her plea for help is found by a reporter named Ford, who feigns insanity in order to gain admittance to the asylum. Dr. Protheroe becomes suspicious of Ford and locks him up with Dosia, whereupon Ford, knowing that his friend Cuthbert will notify the police if he and Dosia do not emerge safely by twelve, barricades the door and waits. In a furious battle with the police and the militia, Dosia's uncle and Dr. Protheroe are killed and the house set ablaze, but Ford and Dosia escape, leaping from the roof into a fire net below. All danger passed, Ford and Dosia become engaged.

James Brieson, a wealthy stockbroker, ruins Hutch Valiant, who soon after dies of the shock. Valiant's son Steele returns from the Northwest, where he won his fortune, just before his father's death and decides to devote his life to the cause of revenge.

A hotel clerk from Iowa believes he's destined to collect first prize in a contest: a movie contract at a Hollywood studio.