The U.S. Army and the Indians sign a peace treaty. However, a group of surveyors trespass on the Indians' land and violate the treaty. The army refuses to listen to the Indians' complaints, and the surveyors are killed by the Indians. A vicious Indian war ensues, culminating in an Indian attack on an army fort.
An narcissistic woman with the ability to charm, Leila Aradella reaps delight from preying upon weak men. Her first victim is John Morton, a talented lawyer, whom she ruins both morally and financially. Her second victim, Rex Walden, the generous son of society matron Mrs. Walden, becomes her complete slave. Mrs. Walden sends her elder son Franklin to try to dissuade Leila from toying with Rex's affections. Franklin, however, also falls under Leila's spell, and Rex is driven to suicide by her callous behavior. Desperate, Mrs. Walden enlists Adele Harley, a girl of strong moral character, to fight Leila for Franklin's affections. Adele's determined victory causes Leila to lose her confidence, and in a drunken state, she cuts her own face with a shard from her shattered mirror. Permanently disfigured, Leila ends a broken and lonely woman.
"Bowie" Blake is a gambler in a mining camp. One day, an artist, Van Dyke Tarleton comes to town with his wife, Naomi. He sees Bowie and decides he is perfect as a model for Lucifer in his latest painting. At first he refuses to pose, but Naomi talks him into it. Tarleton sees that Bowie is attracted to his wife, and purposely insults her just to get the right evil look in his eyes. But finally Bowie, whose feelings have become too much for him, quits.
D'Artagnan leaves home travelling to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although D'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age: Athos, Porthos and Aramis and gets involved in affairs of the state and court.
A "scientific detective" story about the attempted murder of a wealthy New Yorker in his mountain lodge is framed with a satire of Hollywood as the writer of the story comically tries to get the script read and accepted by a studio.
Dr. Dudley Duprez is a well-known Louisiana physician. His beautiful but wayward niece, Rose Duprez, is abducted by Paul Crenshaw, a friend of the doctor, and to prevent her shame from becoming known, Rose kills herself. Dr. Duprez learns her secret and determines to make Crenshaw expiate his crime. While traveling on a Mississippi River steamer, the doctor wins Mercedes, a beautiful slave, at cards. He takes her home and, passing her off as a distant relative, arranges it so that Crenshaw falls in love with the girl.
After her family dies in the jungle, Ollante is raised by Brazilian Indians, and, from her rugged lifestyle, she grows into a woman of uncommon strength and courage. Then, she rescues Ridgeway Webb, an explorer.....
James Herron, a consumptive, has built a shack in the hope that the mountain air may prolong his life. With him dwells his daughter, Fay, whom he idolizes. Fay, who has been blind from her birth, has a wonderful imagination, even the town and its sordid inhabitants become invested with romance and take their part in the stories of adventures that her father reads to her.
Amos Dyer receives word from Washington that there are wireless messages being transmitted from a point in Oregon to foreign battleships off the Pacific Coast. Dyer, the Secret Service representative on the Coast, sets out with his assistant, Calhoun. He arrives, assumes the disguise of an invalid being wheeled about in a chair by his assistant and interviews the regular wireless operator at that point. The suspicions of the Secret Service Department are verified.
Jules Ingram ( William Desmond ), the sole survivor of an old Puritan family, seeks solace and forgetfulness in drink. Unable to pay his debts, Jules is driven from his house when banker Rufus Moore ( Robert McKim ) forecloses on the mortgage. Offered shelter by Mercy Reed ( Margery Wilson ), a woman who in her youth naively sinned and has remained rejected by the community ever since, Jules begins to reform. Climbing his way back to respectability, Jules attends church with Mercy, causing a storm of protest. Moore's wife Agnes urges the mob to violence, and as they attempt to tar and feather Jules and Mercy, Mercy delivers an eloquent speech condemning Moore as her betrayer. The mob then takes Moore as their victim, leaving Jules and Mercy in peace.
A small town marshal’s secret past as an outlaw comes back to haunt him when an old associate shows up and threatens to expose his former dark deeds.
When Reverend Robert Henley and his sister Faith arrive in the town of Hell's Hinges, saloon owner Silk Miller and his cohorts sense danger to their evil ways. They hire gunman Blaze Tracy to run the minister out of town. But Blaze finds something in Faith Henley that turns him around, and soon Silk Miller and his compadres have Blaze to deal with.
Luke McVane (William S. Hart) shoots a card-cheat in self-defense and has to make a run for it before the town lynch him.
Wealthy John Steele has a handsome young son, Frank, on whom he pins his hopes. But riches lead Frank not into social standing and duty, but into depravity, drug-addiction, criminal activity, and finally to tragedy.
William Berner is an English spy who is doing his job behind German lines. While working for the allies, he proves sympathetic toward a German Lieutenant and saves his life. He gives up his own romance for the cause and is killed when the Allies shell the German trench where he happens to be.
Molly Ashley, a child of the slums, is charged with being an accomplice to a shoplifter. Although innocent, she is convicted of shoplifting and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Jim Tracy, the leader of a band of gangsters, rescues Molly. The following morning Detective Stone is assigned the task of locating and running down Jim Tracy's gang. In order to secure evidence against the gang, he disguises himself as one of the gangsters, runs into their place and pretends that the "cops" are after him. Tracy and the gang take him in. Molly falls in love with Stone and discovers his true identity. One of the crooks gets sore at Jim Tracy and betrays them to the police. Jim accuses Molly of betraying them. Stone resents his accusation.
Dr. Robert Lowndes of the British army practices in a small Indian outpost during a cholera epidemic, and to ease his fever, uses morphine. He becomes an addict, but his sweetheart, Betty Archer, makes him promise to reform. Another of Betty's suitors, however, Captain Guy Douglas, uses drugs to tempt Lowndes.
Antone Tojetti and his pretty daughter, Maria, are street musicians in Venice. John Strom, an American millionaire, makes love to Maria, and finally persuades her to leave for America with him. Her father sees them just as they are leaving, but she will not return to him. Two years later, Maria, abandoned by John, returns to her father, who has now become a guide in the mountains. She dies and Antone vows vengeance. Some time after this, John Strom, now married, is touring Europe and he and his party seek a guide to visit Vesuvius. Antone takes the position. John not recognizing in him the father of Maria.
In Belgium, at the outbreak of the war, Russian agent Olga Raminoff shoots at a German general when the enemy enters town. Ray Bourke, an American traveler, gives her the protection of his name, but nevertheless both are sentenced to death. They are rescued by an allied rescue plane and later, bound for home, Ray meets an old college friend, Curt Schreiber, who is in the service of the German government. Schreiber has important papers to be delivered to Washington and, knowing that he will be searched on board ship, gives them to Ray. Olga beseeches Ray to give the papers up for her sake, but his word to Schreiber is sacred. Nearing America, Ray tells her that he will make an effort to return the papers if she will marry him.
Prince Tonio of Bothalia, a mythical kingdom in the Balkan Mountains, escapes an arranged marriage to Princess Athalia, the elderly daughter of a neighboring king. Filled with wanderlust, he becomes a sailor and goes to San Francisco where he meets a young singer...
