Kindly widowed farmer John Hardy takes in the orphaned Ida Allen and due to her care of him adopts her. While there is a plan in place for John’s other daughter Eleanor to marry neighboring farmer Hugh Conway she has fallen in love with a wastrel, Paul Denny. Foolhardy, she elopes with Paul who quickly abandons the now pregnant Eleanor who then entreats Ida’s help. Ida comes to her aid, but Eleanor expires leaving Ida with the baby. Meanwhile Hugh and John have been led to believe Ida has disgraced them but when Denny returns looking for hush money, they learn the truth. Hugh banishes the blackard, finds and declares his love for Ida and the family is reunited.

James Oliver, has a delicate little wife about to become a mother. Their family doctor advises Oliver that he must not become engaged in any physical encounter or get hurt in any way or it would kill her. Soon thereafter Oliver is at the bar when a rough patron of the place invites him to drink. Oliver declines and on insistence by the rough, asks for soda water, which the rough throws in Oliver's face in disgust. Forced to fight or acknowledge himself a coward, Oliver admits cowardice. They all jeer him, when an old man a quiet spectator of the scene, tells the following story visioned in and out in pictures. He takes for his text the statement that, "No man who will admit that he is a coward for a principal is one". He depicts the story of a young man, Thomas Marsh by name, who had a feeling of fear born in his physical being.

Tommie Burke is a tomboy, and she can braid a hackamore, rope a steer, ride a broncho, or do any of the things cowboys usually accomplish. Arnold Blake, son of the wealthiest cattleman, is her companion on many wild rides and innocent escapades. Away back in the back bay district of Boston, Charles Percival is starting for the west, with out the farewells of an uncle and two stern maiden aunts, who feel that he has disgraced them forever by his reckless habits. About the time he arrives at the Burke ranch, the latter receives his New York sister and her daughter Mabel.

Matchin' Jim comes to the "Flying A" ranch and is employed as one of its cowboys. His name is well justified, as he has a mania for matching coins. Not far from the ranch lives Ellings, an old placer miner. He has a daughter, Phyllis, whose sole delight in life seems to be in caring for a puny rose bush that she has planted at the side of her father's cabin. By diligent nursing she has managed to bring it to such a stage that it produces a single blossom. As Matchin' Jim is wandering near the cabin one day, hunting, a wild shot from his gun narrowly misses Phyllis and cuts from the rose bush its one lone flower. She calls to Jim, and when he comes to her she points out the damage that he has done. But Jim only grins and tells her that he'll match her to see whether she is going to be mad at him or not.