John Cranford is a U.S. customs agent dedicated to stem the activities of a gang of opium smugglers. After successfully closing the case, Cranford takes a vacation on Pidgin Island, near Kingston, Ontario. Here he meets the beautiful Diana Wynne, whose mysterious behavior both fascinates and attracts him. It turns out that Diana is herself a secret service agent, bent on trapping notorious pearl smuggler Michael Smeed.

Garment manufacturer Sergius cuts his workers' wages, prompting a protest led by two Russian sisters, Olga and Vera. Sergius's affluent daughters, Hattie and Helen, decide to support the workers' cause, moving into the sisters' tenement and joining the workforce, much to their father's dismay. In a dramatic turn, the daughters bring their work to the factory and confront Sergius. They make a final appeal to him in his office, where he eventually relents and agrees to meet the workers' demands. Following this victory, Hattie and Helen decide to return home to their father, and the good news is shared with all the factory girls, ending the story on a note of general rejoicing.

John spies his girlfriend embracing his brother. Stunned, John deposits the family's money and leaves the country. Years later he returns to find his brother dead, the plantation in ruins, and that he is suspected of stealing the money.

Archie Sheldon, determining to go to New York City, is given a letter by his mother to Thatcher Thole, Gotham's most unscrupulous financier. She tells her son that Thole is an old friend of the family, and will undoubtedly give him a start in life.

A mentally deranged sanatorium patient imagines that he is the world's greatest actor.

When Jasper Leigh calls on Professor Hunt to ask for his daughter, Mary's, hand in marriage, the Professor tells him that the girl is too young. He also tells Jasper that Mary believes her mother dead, but that she had eloped with another man. Leigh encounters a ragged and worn woman, who proves to be Mary's mother.

Annie, left orphaned after the death of her mother, goes to an orphanage where she tells her fellow orphans stories of ghosts and goblins. The matron of the orphanage finds Annie's closest relative, the abusive Uncle Thomp. Big Dave, a neighbor comes to her aid, becoming her protector. Eventually Annie goes to live with Squire Goode and his large family. There, she entertains the children of the household with her stories, but sees her abusive aunt and uncle as her chief tormentors. She tells stories of how the goblins will take away the children if they are not good. War breaks out and Dave, who Annie adores, enlists. In a feverish vision triggered by her distress—revealed later as a nightmare—she imagines receiving news of Dave's battlefield death, delivered mockingly by her uncle, leading to her heartbroken collapse and apparent deathbed vigil.

Mary Beth rents an attic room to Richard, a composer. Frustrated with the publishers demands for cheap, trashy songs, Richard, penniless, tries to asphyxiate himself, but Mary intervenes, encouraging him to go on. Mary finds his song, and secretly sells a song she finds of his, "The Rainbow Girl", to a publisher, later finding out that she, herself, is the Rainbow Girl he wrote about.

Widow Catherine Winship cherishes the memory of her late husband so greatly that she has given up her life to the adoration of his memory. However Catherine's idealism is rudely shattered when she discovers a package of love letters in a secret drawer in Winship's desk.

After an argument with his father, in which he is accused of stealing, Bill Carmody leaves home. His girlfriend Ethel is mad at him because of his carousing. So he heads out West, but he gets in a railroad accident and saves the life of Appleton, who owns a lumber mill. To reward Bill, Appleton gives him a job, and it doesn't take him long to discern that Buck Moncrossen, the camp boss, is crooked.

Norman Winthrop, a surveyor, accidentally meets John Bunny, an Irish watchman of a building. He introduces him to Tom and Will Hawley, two of his friends, at a little poker game in which Bunny pockets all the winnings. Talking over the matter the next day, the three men agree that it would be a great joke to introduce Bunny into society.

A short comedy about a tramp who enters the home of a wealthy family, indulging in food and drink, and tries on the father's new boots. The mother scares him off, and then tries on the boots herself.

Billy Garrison, a successful young jockey, rides the favorite "Sis" in the Louisville Derby. He does not ride with his customary vigor and dash. He feels "doped" and entirely out of condition and as a consequence "Sis," instead of winning the race, trails in last under the wire. At the stables he is accused of throwing the race, but denies it.

Nadia, a stenographer, must give her meager earnings to her drunken father. When he shoots his wife's lover, Nadia decides to move in with her flashy girl friend Mabel, who soon introduces her to the fast life.

When Cindy Lane becomes pregnant, Mark Brierson, the father, refuses to marry her. Instead, Brierson romances Azalia Deering, whose father, General Deering, owns the town bank. Brierson misuses bank funds, but the bank is saved by Jack Rose, a wealthy farmer. Cindy's father Zeb vows to kill her lover, but she refuses to reveal the man's identity.

Wade Brent's father bequeaths to his son several hundred thousand dollars, but leaves this in the hands of a strict guardian. Wade's reckless expenditures and dissolute habits were the cause for these restrictions. Included in the property is Brent Hot Springs, a resort and the location of a sanitarium.

Jan, the hunter, is in love with Marie, a French-Canadian girl. The same charmer has captivated Otto, the driver of the Wilderness Mail, a vengeful and selfish individual. Mane has a half-sister, Joan, a decided contrast to her, a sweet lovable girl not ordinarily bold or aggressive, but when aroused firm to a finish.

Robert Barker, the newly arrived missionary, bears gifts to King Lomba of the Bartosi tribe. The king accepts the gifts, but tells Barker, "The bones of our ancestors have told us that white men are traitors." Kahma, King Lomba's younger brother, is being educated at the mission. While hunting one day, he sees Grace, the daughter of the missionary, in line of fire and saves her life. The witch doctor decrees that Kahma be thrown into the jungle stockade.

A young woman in the Canadian wilderness, seduced and then abandoned by her Canadian Mountie lover, turns for help to her old Indian friend.

Billy McVeigh, a member of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, runs amuck another person of this service undeserving of its uniform, named Nome. The latter becomes his sworn enemy and is alert for a chance to "get even."