The impoverished Harlow family of New England is forced to take in summer boarders. Teenaged niece Tressie welcomes the change and promptly falls in love with a wealthy young guest named Norman Minot. Although Norman returns Tressie’s affection, he is driven away by a fortune-hunting mother who wants him to marry her daughter. Robert Kitteridge, a scheming artist friend of Norman's, takes Tressie on a sailboat outing, during which they narrowly escape death when their boat is rammed by a steamship. After being put ashore the next morning in Boston, MA, Robert takes Tressie to his studio and attempts to seduce her.

Mix is Grant Malvern, a rancher who befriends scientist Quentin Durant (Tom S. Guise) after rescuing him from a trio of Chinese crooks. The crooks want to find Durant's Arizona gold mine, and the map to the location is contained in a pair of rings. After the crooks track down Durant and kill him, one of the rings winds up with Durant's daughter, Helen (Adams), and the other falls into Malvern's hands.

Austin Bevans, a lively car-salesman, suddenly finds himself heir to the Bevans School for Girls. Since Austin feels that acquiring grace and charm are more important to a young girl than acquiring knowledge, academic courses are dropped, and a charm school emerges. He submits to the charms of Elsie, a student at the school, whose grandfather takes him into his employ after a newly discovered will dispossesses him of the school. Elsie resents Austin for accepting a job with those who formerly thought him undesirable, but later she relents and takes him back.

A rich young boy has to prove his worth to the gang he has just joined by during all sorts of hardships, including a kidnap attempt, before they'll accept him.

An outlaw named Duane ( Tom Mix ), captured by the Texas Rangers, is promised a pardon if he rounds up a gang of cattle thieves. The man he suspects as the leader is revealed to be the father of Duane's sweetheart, Helen ( Billie Dove ). Duane captures the gang, gets a pardon for Helen's father, and marries Helen.

After Wes Channing's partner, the feckless Buck Littleton, loses his half-interest in their ranch to gambler Flash Denby, Wes stands up against the sheriff's men when they try to seize the ranch-- land that has a gold mine on it. Denby tries to trick Mary Sims, granddaughter of Wes's neighbor Rufe Sims, into signing over the rights to the land. Denby's machinations are all set in order-- but Wes's right hook may prove to be a hell of a monkey wrench!

Cowboy Jack Horton searches for the killer of his father and brother, both of whom were found with an ace of clubs pinned to their bodies.

In his last film, silent star William Russell plays the motorcycle policeman father of one of the restless and reckless new generation of late 1920s youth. The film was controversial as an early example of the rising tide of violence and disrespect for the law that would become key themes in the 1930s.