Tate Killaly and his daughter, Zelma, cross the river to the trading post of Henri Cocteau, located in a little Alaska town. Quig Lanigan, Cocteau’s tool and a brute attacks Zelma, but a stranger, Bruce McLaren steps in saving her from harm. Later Zelma later finds the stranger suffering from snow blindness, takes him home to her cabin and nurses him back to health over the course of which they fall in love. He admits he is a wrongfully accused fugitive from justice with a price on his head. When Tate and Cocteau become aware of the stranger's presence, they attempt capture, but Zelma helps him escape. Eventually the men are exposed, and Bruce is cleared.

At the Golden Trail saloon in Alaska, Dave Langdon meets chorus girl Faro Kate who reminds him of his long-lost love, Jane Sunderlin. Meanwhile, back in the States, Harry Teal, scheming to steal a mine claim, hires Jane's brother Dick to do his dirty work in Alaska. After Jane accompanies her brother up North, Teal, who has designs on Jane, begins to fear that she will go back to Dave and so plots to discredit him by igniting the jealousy of Kate's admirer, Jim Sykes. Teal succeeds, and in the violent fight that erupts between Dave and Sykes, Sykes is shot by an unknown hand. While pursuing Sykes' assailant, Dave discovers Jane, but their reunion is cut short when Dave is arrested for the shooting.

A fire engulfs a shipload of prospectors and adventurers making their way to Alaska. In the confusion, Mrs. Stanlaw is separated from her young daughter, who ends up in the care of 'Horseshoe' Riley and Bob Dexter.

The story of a man who seeks self-aggrandizement regardless of the sacrifice of friends, sweetheart and honor, but who is finally made to realize the futility of an ambition founded on false principles.

War buddies Whitey and Skeeter have become safecrackers. On a job, Skeeter is surprised by the police and killed. Later Whitey discovers that the lowlife Mal is the police informer responsible for Skeeter's death. Whitey sets out to find his moll Kitty, hearing she has gone to the country to find peace and quiet he finds her in a small town. She is involved with bank clerk Fred Morton, so Whitey pretends he has found someone else too. When Mal arrives in town as the advance man for a con and he pursues Skeeter’s sister Evelyn, Kitty tells the story of her own criminal past to save her. Fred drops her, and Kitty tries to drown herself in the river. Whitey saves her life and exposes Fred as an embezzler.