Tim Clancy was a politician. He was a contractor incidentally. He wanted and secured, by breaking down a good man's moral code, the contract to build the new city water system. Specifications called for the best. He put in the cheapest.

Lt. Tom Brennan is cashiered from the 7th Cavalry on two charges, both unjust: that of deserting his men in the face of a cruel Indian attack, and of entertaining a married woman in his quarters after hours. Tom wanders into the desert and is picked up half-dead by Yuba Bill, a prospector with whom he goes into partnership. The Indians go on the warpath, and Tom rides to the fort and warns the colonel. Tom's innocence is established by the confession of an enlisted man, and Tom is reinstated to the service with full honors, renewing his engagement with Margaret Cranston.

The efforts of crooked rancher Stephen Laban to force his local bank into an unsecured loan are foiled by Fred Hunter and Jake Robbins, and Laban vows vengeance on the pair; but he is temporarily thwarted by the arrival from the East of society girl Millicent Delacey. Knowing her weakness for social prestige, Hunter arranges to masquerade as the Duke of Black Butte, a visiting nobleman on a hunting expedition; Millicent and her social-climbing mother completely succumb to the duke's charm.

Inspired by his wife Lorna, shiftless William Gordon discovers a welding process worth millions and becomes president of a large corporation. Henry Blake, a friend of Gordon's from his indolent days, is forced to marry when his girl friend Mamie gives birth to a daughter, who is sent to live in a convent.

Jack O'Brien comes to the mining town of El Dorado with nothing but his pluck and his music. Biddy Malone was the first to hear his singing, and it won a place for the lad in her heart and a job at her woodpile to pay for his board, while Mary, who lived with Biddy, looked and listened, and learned to love the big singer. Hardpan Henry, who owned the Lucky Strike claim, and who was really Mary's father, also hears the troubadour's song, took a fancy to the lad and showed him the sights of El Dorado.

The Girl Stage Driver plays like a one-reeler stretched into two. When the stagecoach driver is murdered by the El Paso Kid and his sidekick, Ruth takes up her father’s reins. On the road, she too fall preys to the bandits, who steal the stage’s gold cargo. The sheriff, Ruth’s sweetheart, rescues her, but he is taken captive by the desperados. The plucky Ruth rescues him once, and then again. Finally, with the help of a posse, the badmen are rounded up for good. Motion Picture News complained that the plot has “a little too much escaping and recapturing” but praised the Arizona settings.

Kenneth Reynolds tells Nelly’s daughter the story of his love for Nelly. Kenneth was in love with Nelly, but the arrival of a stranger drove Nelly and Kenneth apart. Nelly and her lover absconded, and Nelly's father then died of grief. After some time, Nelly returned with a child, and took her last breath in Kenneth’s arms. The daughter had to cry upon hearing this story, told by the now somewhat older Kenneth, after all these years.

Cobb plays a Mountie called Field, who protects a girl from Jackson Rasker, the leader of an outlaw gang. Field falls for the girl, but her father's dying wish is that she should marry Rasker, who will stop at nothing to get the gal.

Truthful Tulliver, a Westerner and a journeying newspaperman, followed by Silver Lode Thompson, printer and compositor, arrives in Glory Hole to start a newspaper.

Silent drama film based on the story "Yellow Handkerchief" by Jack London.