Ethel Warren has many suitors for her hand. She cannot decide between two of them, Anson Pryce, a lawyer, and John King, a journalist. John has had an accident and lost the use of an arm. War is declared and both men hasten to volunteer. Anson is accepted at once, but John is rejected on account of his arm.

In this action-packed serial, government agent Quentin Locke infiltrates a corrupt patents company, only to run into the gleaming terror of its robot protector, the Automaton. In order to save the beautiful Eva Brent and find a cure for the dreaded Madagascar Madness, Locke suffers an inhuman array of tortures and physical restraints. He is chained, tied with barbed wire, padlocked in a crate and thrown in the water, tied beneath a descending elevator, strapped to an electric chair, and bound in an elaborate Oriental torture chamber.

Falsely accused of the theft of a million dollars in securities from the safe of his wealthy employer, an honest young private secretary finds himself powerless to prove his innocence because of the perjury of an unprincipled butler who has been bribed to testify against him. For 23 chapters/adventures he and his boss's daughter set out to clear his name and catch the real culprit.

Mary Keene is placed in John Ingalls' office to help carry out a plot to steal his money by placing a fake sister in his home. Mary, however, falls in love with Ingalls, foiling the scheme.

When his son is reluctant to fight for democracy Philip Nolan II shares with him the secret he has long held, the treason of the first Philip Nolan "The Man Without a Country." He explains how the elder Nolan played into the hands of Aaron Burr; how Thomas Jefferson was elected president over Burr; how Alexander Hamilton prevented the conscienceless Burr becoming governor of New York; the duel between Hamilton and Burr; how Philip Nolan was later arrested on his wedding night for aiding Burr, who had conspired to start a rival government in the south to wage war against the United States, and how he was later banished from the United States for saying "Damn the United States! I wish I might never hear its name again," and how Philip Nolan died kissing the flag of the country he had execrated. Understanding how important freedom is the younger Nolan rushes to enlist.