When a hypnotist named Norman Osgood mesmerizes a man named Harrison Kirke without his consent, Kirke threatens to kill him. Afraid for his life, Osgood hypnotizes another man named George Clayton and tells him he must murder Mr. Kirke one hour before the arrival of the dawn. Kirke is found murdered the next day, and Clayton starts to believe he was the murderer.

Adopted by the Kellys from an orphanage, Nancy is reared in dreadful surroundings and mistreated as the household drudge. She accidentally makes the acquaintance of Jack Halliday, son of a wealthy city family who is fishing near her home. When Mrs. Kelly beats Nancy for accepting the attentions of her husband, the girl escapes into the woods and conceals herself in the rear of Jack's car as he drives into the city.

Rose, a stranded showgirl, participates in a local amateur show and wins the prize. After the performance, she meets a wealthy young man who buys her supper, gets her accommodation on a farm adjoining his father's estate, and turns farmhand to win her love.

Joan Lowrie and her brutal father, Dan, labor in the English coal mines of the 1870's. Fergus Derrick, a new over-man, attempts to make his workers' lives more bearable but incurs Lowrie's wrath when he fires him for smoking in the mine. Bent on vengeance, Lowrie is beaten when he picks a fight with Fergus, then defiantly smokes in a mine tunnel. There is an explosion, Joan rescues Fergus, and their love triumphs over their class barriers. −

Santussa, an orphan who becomes separated from her nurse en route to America to live with her grandfather, is cared for by gangsters who hide their stolen jewels in her ragdoll. In New York, Big Mike, finding Santussa a nuisance, dumps her and the doll in a trash can, where a newsboy finds her. After several adventures, Santussa finds her grandfather, the jewels are handed over to customs officials, and the gang of crooks is reformed.

Professional forger Bill Butters realizes one day that the police are closing in on him, and convinces his daughter Peggy to flee.

Michael, a half-breed Indian, is forced off a wagon train by scout Michael. Seeking revenge, he murders the wife of a college professor, kidnaps her baby daughter, and raises her as his own.

Forced to wear quaint short dresses and pigtails so that she will inspire her grandfather's sentimental poetry, nineteen-year-old Joy Havenith longs for companions of her own age.

A vivacious, carefree young girl is disgusted by the thought of growing old. In her despondency she adopts the motto "Who cares?" and does her best to live up to it, even after she marries the handsome and dashing Martin Grey.