Although Spencer Wellington (Howard Hickman) comes from an old, aristocratic family, he carries a bad gene. His doctor, John Rand (George Fisher) recommends that he never marry, but Wellington ignores his advice and weds Grace Valiant (Mary Mersch), who the doctor himself loves. Grace checks out Wellington's family tree and discovers the gene, but she's already pregnant. She gives birth to a child with a birth defect that kills him.

The rancher Jeff Bransford returns to his ancestral acres and finds them heavily mortgaged and about to be foreclosed and is defended by hired men with guns.

Nina, engaged to a French captain, and Nancy, engaged to a doctor who runs an insane asylum on an island, are friends. When the doctor catches Nancy kissing the captain, known for kisses with a "heavenly kick," he breaks the engagement. In an effort to win back the doctor for Nancy, Nina pretends to be a bit "off" and becomes an inmate of the sanitarium.

Avis and Franklin Hilliard are the spoiled, overbearing children of a wealthy father who has just died. Lord Cecil Oakleigh, a fortune hunter, is Avis's fiancée, although there is no love between them, he marrying her for her fortune and she marrying him for his title. Mr. Hilliard has left the superintendent of his mine in full charge of his fortune.

A woman is injured escaping her abusive husband and wanders the forest in a daze but loses her baby. Indians find her baby and rear the child as their own. Years later the mother is now married to an army colonel and living in a fort. A conflict with local the tribe breaks out and the woman discovers that their chief is her lost child.

In Snake River, Buck Farley breaks up a fight staged by crooked Chicago Saloon owner Johnson, who set-up alcoholic Jake Frazer as the town's sheriff as a joke. Johnson pretends to have saved Buck's life (when in reality he was planning on shooting him), which indentures Buck to Johnson, and Buck becoming his deputy. Buck also starts to have feelings for Jake's daughter, Emma, who has also rebuffed the advances of Johnson. Johnson uses a ruse to get Buck searching for some allegedly stolen horses in the desert, but Buck forces Johnson to accompany him (after he realizes that Johnson is not on the up and up, and also has designs on Emma)...

Gordon Elliott, a student at one of the big universities, is unable to make the football team until his senior year. He is then awarded a position at center because of his superior method of passing the ball, though his lightness is against him. He overhears the head coach say that Dick Blackwood would make a better center if only he could master the pass. In his loyalty to the college Elliott teaches Blackwood the pass, thereby eliminating himself, not merely from the team, but also, as he supposes, from the possibility of winning Marjorie Burgess, who has commanded him to return for his answer after he has played his first big game.

Ruth Castle plans to surprise her husband on their fifth wedding anniversary with a very elaborate dinner and promises their two little children that they may eat at the big table that night. Rex, her husband, is infatuated with Yvette, a dancer, and, having forgotten all about the anniversary, has a date with Yvette, whose birthday it is. He buys Yvette a beautiful diamond necklace which he leaves in his overcoat pocket. Ruth peeks in his pocket for her expected present and discovers the necklace. She is much surprised when Rex leaves without having given it to her.

Mr. Barr is a young husband who is inclined to neglect his wife for the other woman. He refuses to accompany her shopping one afternoon and leaves, meeting another girl, whom he takes to the theater. Mrs. Barr is all broken up. She is visited by a friend who suggests that they go to a matinee. They do so and Mrs. Barr discovers Mr. Barr in a box with the other woman. She leaves very much broken up. She attempts suicide on a railroad track, but is frightened by the rumbling of the train. She next visits a drug store where her nervous manner gives away her intention to the druggist. Instead of giving her cyanide of potassium as she requests he gives her a bottle of plain water, marking it cyanide of potassium.

Nell Saunders is the daughter of an innkeeper in a college town. She is loved by Glen Dale, the quarterback of the college team, and also Pierson, the fullback.