During the World War, Donald Allen is reported killed in action but is really a victim of amnesia. His French nurse, Suzanne, gives him a new identity, and they marry.

Sam Martin grows up in the Kentucky hills with a preacher as his closest friend and father figure. The young man goes away and gets an education, and when he returns home, he wants to build a school so that others can learn, too.

Toughened criminal Jim Reagan tries to persuade his brother, Larry, to go straight, but Larry attempts to rob a banker, Richard Milton, and is arrested. Milton refuses to be lenient, and when Larry is killed trying to escape from prison, Jim and his wife, Molly, resolve to have vengeance.

Charlie Chan is sought out by Pamela Gray, a desperate young socialite whose brother Paul awaits execution for the murder of a weapons inventor. Pamela is convinced of his innocence.

A wealthy landowner living in Haiti convinces a sorcerer to lure the woman he has fallen for away from her fiancé. The madman later betrays their agreement by keeping the woman for himself…as a zombie.

Galen Albret (Noah Beery) is the factor, or manager, of an important trading post of the Hudson Bay Company. He's also a jealous and vindictive man, and because he believes that Graham Stewart (Edward Martindel) has slept with his wife, he sends him into the Northwoods to die. Stewart's son, who grows up with the name Ned Trent (Jack Holt), swears revenge.

Steve Tuttle, the titular lazybones, takes on the responsibility of raising a fatherless girl, causing a scandal in his small town. Many years later, having returned from World War I, he discovers that he loves the grown-up girl.

Brandon, a surveyor, dreams of building a railway to the west. He sets off with his son, Davy, to survey a route. They discover a new pass which will shave 200 miles off the expected distance, but they are set upon by a party of Cheyenne. One of them, a white renegade with only two fingers on his right hand, kills Brandon and scalps him. Davy is all alone now.

Billy Garrison, a jockey, is framed and suspended for throwing a face. Depressed, he goes to a bar and eventually gets into a fight. He loses his memory, and is taken to the home of pretty young Sue Desha, who gets him a job as a jockey for her father, Col. Desha. Unfortunately, the man who framed Billy, named Crimmins, finds out he's working for the Sue's father and reveals Billy's past to the colonel. Complications ensue.

Infamous Singapore smuggler Bully Brand possess a beautiful pearl necklace that is desired by Chinese merchant Chan Chang for his daughter Pain, a young white girl he had adopted. Warren Bradford, Brand's ward, returns from college and falls in love with Chang's daughter.