Refusing to marry her stepmother's choice, Gail Prim leaves her life of luxury, after cutting her hair, dressing in her butler's clothes and stealing money and jewels from her father's safe. Spending the night in a barn, she introduces herself to the thieves already there as the Oskaloosa Kid, a wanted criminal, and barely escapes their struggle to get her loot. Meanwhile, the real Oskaloosa Kid kills Reginald Paynter and throws Nettie Penning, whom Reginald was trying to seduce, onto the highway.

Harry Caton, a popular New York musical-comedy star, loses his voice on stage and then journeys to a small town on the New England coast to recuperate. Here Harry meets the beautiful Nancy Potter when he defends her against the drunken advances of Silas Jones, her father's friend. Although his daughter believes that he is a fisherman, Cail Potter is actually a thief, robbing houses along the coast with Silas as his accomplice. When Cail robs the wealthy Col. Brett's home, he finds an old miniature of a woman who exactly resembles Nancy, whom Cail rescued from a wrecked boat when she was just a year old. Soon after the robbery, Harry learns that the police are about to raid Cail's house, but Silas knocks him unconscious when he attempts to warn Nancy.

The son of an American mine owner, traveling under the name of Charles Conant, tries to enter England in 1916 after masquerading as a muleteer, but the captain of his ship, suspicious when he sees Charles look through a spyglass, plans to take him back to the United States. Charles escapes and visits his relative, Lady Dartridge, where he falls in love with her daughter, Lady Joan Templar, who is loved by her cousin, the chief constable, George Templar. Templar, suspicious of Charles' manner and unexplainable meetings and activities, wants to arrest him as a spy.