John Carleton is living a carefree jazz lifestyle, much to the annoyance of his father. When he can take it no longer, Carleton senior sends John to his ranch in the West, hoping that the experience will make a man of him. John's ability to ride a bucking bronco wins the friendship of the cowhands, but trouble's a-brewin' when he falls in love with Beryl King.
While in Europe, Chaddie Green, a society girl, discovers that she has been left penniless. She returns to the United States and meets Duncan MacKail, who is equally broke though he owns grainland in the West. Duncan and Chaddie are married and go west to homestead. Duncan hires Ollie, a Swedish caretaker, who frightens Chaddie. When business takes Duncan away, Chaddie goes to take care of Percy Woodhouse, an Englishman who has become ill at his place fifteen miles away. Her horse runs away, and she is forced to spend the night there. She sleeps under a wagon, but Duncan is nevertheless angry and jealous.
Story of a cowboy who saves an old cobbler from being abused by a nasty banker. The banker does not take kindly to Hartwell's interfering and orders his henchman to kill the upstart.
Lucius Merrimore is the wealthy owner of a mine called "the Gold Girl," and as a result his daughter, Helen, has an endless number of suitors. Needless to say, she gets tired of being courted only for her money, so she attends a party under an assumed name. There she meets Schuyler Livingstone, and they are immediately attracted to each other. What Helen doesn't know is that her father has paid Livingstone to marry her.
Alone and unprotected in an isolated wilderness cabin, Ruth Jordan is discovered by three drunken brutes who begin to barter for her. In desperation, she appeals to Stephen Ghent, the least degraded of the desperadoes, promising herself to him if he saves her from the others. Ghent buys off Shorty with a chain of gold nuggets and knocks Dutch senseless. Ghent then sends Dutch off with Shorty and takes Ruth to the next town, where he forces her to marry him. During the 3-day ride across the desert to Ghent's gold mine, the idealistic Ruth learns that he is a man of rough passions.
Duffy Burns returns from college in the East and discovers that his father's cattle are being systematically stolen by a band of unknown outlaws. Duffy resolves to catch the culprits, conceals his identity, and goes to work on his father's ranch.
Chester Winfield tries to make it as a lumberjack, but he's foiled by his lack of strength and the jealous foreman, Big Bill Reardon, after Chester catches the eye of Hazel Wood, Big Bill's favorite and the camp's waitress. Bill tries to eliminate Chester, so he and Hazel head down the mountain for other work. She waits tables and gets him a job as a dishwasher. He spills kerosene in the soup and then must serve it to an angry customer. Hazel tells a couple of tall tales about Chester, and soon all the customers, the owner, and the cook, think he's a desperado. They make him the saloon bouncer. Some trick shooting seals his reputation. Then Big Bill arrives for a showdown.
The Hurricane Kid runs afoul of Colonel Langdon's ranch foreman, Lafe Baxter when Joan Langdon shows an obvious preference for The Kid, and The Kid responds by protecting Joan from Baxter.
To spite her domineering father, Eastern girl Lucy Fox pursues an unsuitable suitor to a small Western hamlet where she obtains a job as a manicurist. A local rancher (Buck Jones), who has fallen for the girl, does his best to persuade her not too marry the bounder.
Against explicit orders, a vainglorious cavalry major insists on counterattacking a gang of hostile Sioux Indians. His captain refuses to comply and is arrested for insubordination and cowardice.
Sheriff Pat Halahan comes into an inheritance and travels to San Francisco to collect. Faith O’Day, a cat burglar armed with pistol and flashlight breaks into his hotel room and demands that Halahan cough up his dough. Halahan sees her threat and raises her a one-dollar bet that he can return a brooch she stole earlier the same evening before its loss is discovered. Pulling off his boots to slip on his own “soft shoes,” Halahan sets off to do a little second-story work, not realizing the trouble he’s in for.
Evil Red Sampson and his band of rustlers shoot up Mineral Point, the ranch of William Conway, owner of a gold mine. Shot and dying, Conway reveals the location of his mine at Boulder Creek in a note.
Stan travels to the small town of Hot Dog to collect an inheritance. He learns his late uncle left him everything - but in the event of Stan's death it all goes to his two outlaw cousins.
Wanted for a murder he didn't commit, Lightnin' Jack travels to Arizona where he gets a job on the Manning ranch. Two men are out to get the Manning ranch and see their chance when Manning decides to use Lightnin's horse in the big race. They get Manning to bet his ranch and then kidnap Lightnin' so he won't be there to ride.
A young cowhand befriends a disreputable gambler and pulls him out of some trouble. Hoping to square things with his new friend, the gambler seeks to warn him about the cowhand's fiancée, about whom the gambler knows some unsavory details.
A miner has struck it rich and gives some ore to cowhand Jess Dean to take to his granddaughter. But Horse Williams has the miner shot and uses the ore found on Jess to accuse him of the murder. Jess escapes from the mob of townspeople who later learn that the body of the supposedly dead miner has mysteriously disappeared.
A cowboy sets out to help a pretty young girl who is about to lose her ranch when crooks plan to foreclose on it because she doesn't have enough money to make her mortgage payment. He puts together a cattle drive in order to sell the herd to raise the money to pay off the note, but when the crooks hear about this, they make plans to stampede the herd along the way.