Convict Tom King is pardoned from a life sentence when he courageously helps other prisoners during a fire. He then goes to live with his brother Matthew, the hated mill owner in a depressed town, and his own son Max, who was brought up by Matthew to believe his father was dead.

Wealthy wastrel Neil Sparks devotes more attention to the pursuit of pleasure than to his inherited oil business. Neil's neglect allows two schemers, Craig and Abbott, to siphon the Sparks' Texas oil through the construction of an illegal pipeline. Upon receiving notification that his wells are running dry, and in an attempt to rid himself of the unwelcome attentions of his mercenary fiancée, Bess Kinloch, Neil ventures West to investigate, using an assumed name. Discovering the theft, Neil sends for his butler, and the two of them force the crooks to buy a parcel of land and deed the property to Myrtle Pratt, whose father had been swindled and murdered by the scoundrels. Justice served, Neil returns East to be followed by Myrtle and her five brothers, who arrive during his engagement party to Bess. Neil shocks his guests by announcing that the children are his, and he and Myrtle wed.

A candidate for governor, eager Gerald Harper persuades his equally ambitious wife Carol to enlist the aid of her friend Diana Casper, whose influence with political boss Jarvis Flint could help him win the election. Carol agrees to speak to Diana on condition that Gerald temporarily assume her work in the city's tenements.

Young Southerners Buck Hineman and Remington Osbury both are in love with the same woman, who promises to marry the one who returns when the Civil War breaks out. On the battlefield, Remington is wounded and left for dead, and Buck returns to marry her. Shortly afterward, Remington returns and contents himself with becoming one of the Hineman family.

A young disabled girl invites a poor family over for Christmas dinner.

A publicist for a racy burlesque troupe romances the daughter of the head of The Purity League, an organization that wishes to see such shows banned.

A girl, suffering from amnesia, shows up in a logging-camp in the northwest. There are those who know more about who she is than she does, including why she is there, and the helpless girl is soon at the mercy of the lawlessness in this far-flung frontier. Will some gentleman come to her aid?

Jack O'Brien comes to the mining town of El Dorado with nothing but his pluck and his music. Biddy Malone was the first to hear his singing, and it won a place for the lad in her heart and a job at her woodpile to pay for his board, while Mary, who lived with Biddy, looked and listened, and learned to love the big singer. Hardpan Henry, who owned the Lucky Strike claim, and who was really Mary's father, also hears the troubadour's song, took a fancy to the lad and showed him the sights of El Dorado.

A newly adopted girl is doted on by her adopted father but faces indifference from her adopted mother.

Kate, whose father, a university graduate, died when she was very young, is adopted by her tenement neighbor, Mrs. McMahon, after her mother, a woman of refinement, dies. At ten, the ill-nourished girl, who has grown up watching her drunken foster father fight with her overworked foster mother, goes to work in a factory after Mr. McMahon loses his job. During the next eight years, Kate's stepbrother, Big Bill McMahon, becomes her friend, sweetheart and protector.