In this musical short, General Bierbeau sends his weakling son, Pierre, to French Morocco to fight Arab insurgents, the Riffs, in the hopes that this will toughen him up. Pierre soon becomes the Riffs' leader and assumes a secret identity: The Red Shadow.

Ethel Barrymore plays the wife of an abusive country squire. So nasty is her husband that he all but forces her to seek solace in the arms of her former sweetheart (played by Alan Hale in his leading-man period). Their clandestine relationship finally comes out in the open when the nasty husband is killed by his irate tenants.

Miriam Gibson is seduced by a handsome adventurer who then abandons her and their child to marry for money. Penniless she becomes a prostitute to care for her child but when the baby dies a hopeless Miriam goes to London becoming the housekeeper and eventual mistress of barrister Geoffrey Sherwood. Jilted by his fiancée Valentine, who likewise married for money, Sherwood has become an alcoholic. As Miriam and Geoffrey grow closer, she hopes for marriage, but when an unhappy Valentine begins to trifle with Geoffrey, he responds and discards Miriam until he realizes Valentine’s shallowness versus Miriam's kindness and consideration for others. They marry in a little Scottish kirk, and sail for Buenos Aires to begin a new life.

Twin sisters Fanny and Evelyn Craig are unaware that their stepfather, Micah Parrish, is a fake spiritualist until his lack of money forces them to return home from boarding school. Evelyn eagerly assists Parrish and his even more unscrupulous partner, Esau Brand, while Fanny, disgusted, leaves home to become lawyer Bruce Taunton's secretary.