Youth meets Ambition and leaves Love, his mother, and his small-town roots for the big city. There, in his search for Experience, he meets Pleasure and hangs out at the Primrose Path with the likes of Temptation and Intoxication. Back home, Youth's mother dies, and Love tries unsuccessfully to reach him. When Youth's money runs out his newfound friends all leave him and he sinks into a life of drug addiction, aided by Habit.

An idealistic sea captain, Dick Carson (Conway Tearle), is wounded by revenue officers while smuggling arms to a South American country. He finds aid and refuge at the home of Dr. Jordan (J. Barney Sherry) whose young wife, Dorothy (Doris Kenyon), is being courted by Andrews (Crauford Kent), who kills the doctor in a quarrel. To avoid the revenue officers, Carson takes them aboard his ship and sets sail for the Far East. He and Dorothy fall in love but, first, he must deal with a mutiny on his ship.