William S. Hart directs and stars in a film that is a typical Western of the era. He plays Jim, a prospector who lands in the town of Broken Hope, and the name pretty much describes its inhabitants. Jim meets and falls in love with Jennie (Margery Wilson), whose father (Walt Whitman) is gravely ill. Jim rounds up a reluctant doctor from another town to tend to the old man, but he dies anyway. The doctor, however, gains Jennie's trust and she runs off with him. Only then does he tell her he's already married. She leaves immediately, but is too proud to go home so she finds work as a dance hall girl at Tacoma Jake's saloon. Jim, meanwhile, finds gold near Broken Hope, which raises its inhabitants' attitudes considerably. But the bad element is still there, and Jim is chasing after a group of kidnappers when he enters Tacoma Jake's saloon and sees Jennie. Jim not only overcomes the bad guys, he gets the girl, too.

Boss rider "Careless" Carmody is made sheriff of an Arizona frontier town by Chicago swindler Prentice. The naive Carmody actually believes Prentice to be on the up and up and vouches for him in a land deal with Ruth Fellowes. Taken to the cleaners, so to speak, Ruth blames Carmody, who, in love with the girl, follows Prentice back to Chicago.

Josephine Darchat lives with her Whipple grandparents in the country and loves Russ Prendergast, son of wealthy Calvin Prendergast, despite the dispute between the families over a spring between their properties.