Broncho Billy, in a quarrel with Faro Dan, a card sharp, shoots him and flees. Pursued, he hides in the wagon of a man whom he meets on the prairie. The posse is misled by Broncho Billy's friend and the fugitive escapes. Several years later Broncho is made sheriff of an adjoining county.
Miss Satterly, the new schoolteacher, is loved by all the cowboys of the "Flying U" ranch. Weary is shy and only makes the acquaintance of the pretty schoolteacher by main force on the part of his cowboy companions.
Spaniard Senor Cabello threatened by an invading party of "Gringoes." leaves his home, accompanied by his servant, Miguel, taking with them the family treasure to be buried until safer days come. Burying the treasure near a certain tree then marking the location on a silver buckle, Miguel kills Senor and retains the buckle so that he may later recover the master's gold. Later settler John Monroe pitches his camp near the treasure tree, cutting it down to make way for his home. After twenty years Miguel sends his son, Felipe, to recover the buried treasure but he is stymied at first by the missing tree. Young surveyor George Davis, who is in love with the John’s daughter Alice, is instrumental in foiling Felipe's work, and in time Alice recovers the treasure.
Tom promises his sweetheart, Vicky, that he will stop drinking. He falls in with boon companions, however, and in a saloon brawl, he accidentally shoots Ned, his pal. The sheriff and Vicky's brother find that Ned was only stunned by the bullet. At a rodeo, Tom meets the sheriff, who arrests Tom for the shooting of Ned.
Tired out, a ranger happens upon a cabin in the woods to ask for rest. He is met at the door by a pretty girl, and it is a case of love at first sight. The girl's father, leader of the lumber thieves, returns to find her before a small mirror arranging her hair, and upbraids her for her vanity. The ranger hears and, as the father is about to strike the girl, rushes out and hurls the man from her. When the ranger departs, the leader of the thieves follows with a rifle, and catching the ranger unawares, forces him to go to the thieves' rendezvous. The girl, who has seen, rushes to call the sheriff. Meanwhile the thieves draw lots to see who shall kill the ranger. It falls to the chief, who is about to shoot the ranger when the sheriff and his aides rush up and arrest the thieves.
Broncho Billy, through a notice posted on a tree, learns he can go free if he will give himself up. He keeps the notice, and, as he rides away, comes upon a little girl, who wandered from her mother, when an accident happened to the stage coach in which the two were riding. The mother, frantic, starts in search of her child, and meanwhile the coach drives on.
This is a story of a wealthy young man, accustomed to the gaieties of café and club life who falls in love with and marries a poor girl, who is infatuated with him. After marriage, however, the young man fails to give up his fast friends and continues to live his gay life. The wife is unhappy and one night when her husband returns home intoxicated, she packs her grip and quits the house. She goes to a railroad station and while waiting for a train, faints. She is taken to the station hospital. The husband awakens and finds his wife gone.
Jim Maitland loses his last cent gambling the Double Stamp saloon and gambling hall, and shortly after it closes, he robs the proprietors "Keno" Bates and "Wind River"are robbed, at gunpoint. After the surprise, they track Maitland down, and Keno shoots him dead on self defense. Keno goes through his belongings and finds a letter and a locket; the letter announces the arrival of the deceased's sister, and the locket has a cameo picture of Doris Maitland. Thus, Keno tells Wind River they must do a heap of lying. Meeting the girl at the stagecoach's arrival, Keeno feels responsible for the innocent and attractive Ms. Maitland; he tells her a white lie, that her brother was a good man, "killed in a mine accident," who had left her a cabin and money - and Keno turns his own cabin over to Doris. Keno and Doris began to fall in love. Anita, a dance-hall girl, aggressively tries to seduce Keno.
Pinto Ben is a pink-nosed cow-pony. A hundred head of cattle are rounded up for beef to be shipped alive to Chicago. Ben and his master, with Segundo Jim, are put in charge. In the Chicago stockyards, men who don't know range-bred cattle from a herd of mountain goats, calmly inform Jim and Ben's master that the steers are to be driven into the big pen. At the same instant two or three stock hands run behind the herd and begin shouting and waving their arms to start the cattle. The beasts, a thousand strong, with horns and hoofs beating the air, bellowing their rage, glaring with bloodshot eyes, thunder into the chute. The two men in front prepare for their death ride. Suddenly Pinto Ben flattens himself before a high, iron-bound gate, and leaps. The pony cleans the gate. The great wave of scorching breath falls back on the other side. Ben's master finds himself sitting on the ground, the head of his dying horse in his lap.
Broncho Billy, while in a dance hall, goes to the assistance of the girl who is playing the piano, when a patron tries to force her to drink. As a result, the girl loses her position. A few days later Broncho Billy finds her wandering about the streets. She tells him the sad story of her life, and how through her innocence, she was led into a shameless life. Broncho Billy falls deeply in love with her, and shortly after asks her to become his wife.
Billy Milford, Harvard graduate, goes west to seek his fortune. In Addertown he secures a position as stationmaster of the L. & R. Railroad, but is forced out because of his drinking habits. He accidentally meets Gunhild, an emigrant Norwegian girl, as she arrives in Addertown to take up her home with Jan Hagsberg, the town's saloonkeeper. Seeking revenge on the railroad, Milford joins Jim Dorsey in a scheme to hold up the road's paymaster on his way to pay the employees of the company's mine.
Jim and Molly are set to get married when Molly finds out about her fiancé's criminal past. Bill Carey weasels his way into Molly's heart in the interim, eager to relieve her of her savings.
Because he believes in education, a ranch owner hires a school teacher from the east and opens a school for his cowboys. The teacher is admired by all of the cowboys, and by one in particular, an outlaw, who frightens all the pupils one morning by writing "school" with bullet holes on the blackboard. Broncho Billy steps in and sends him over the county line.
Jeanne La Roche lives alone with her brother in the great northwestern country. Jacques is a ne'er-do-well and has fallen under the suspicion of the mounted police, two of whom are dispatched to arrest him for robbery. The stolen goods are found in his home. Jeanne is too young to be left in their lonely cabin, so she is taken to the post, where the wife of the proprietor welcomes her and gives her a home. Several years later, Donald McLean wins her for his wife. Meantime Jacques escapes from prison, eludes his pursuers and takes refuge in McLean's home.
Broncho Billy, engaged to the girl, becomes jealous of a newcomer, and in remorse, gets intoxicated. He takes hack the girl's ring and frightens the tenderfoot out of a general store. Mounting his horse he pursues his frightened rival and, after many miles of galloping, overtakes him and brings him back to town, where he flings him in the girl's arms, saying, "Here's your tender foot. Try and make a man of him." Two years later, her husband dead, the wife is at the point of death, half-starved and with a small child to care for.
Urged on by his wife and daughter and against his better judgment, Texas cattle-baron Maverick Brander, finds himself in Washington D. C. as an elected congressman. However, when the Brander family arrives in Washington, they are met at every junction by snobbery and ridicule. Then an investigative committee arrives from Texas to check up on how Maverick is representing their interests.
Paro, a half-breed Indian, overcome with liquor, encounters Grace, the pretty daughter of James Lathrop, a mine owner. She is sorry for his condition and gives him a cross of black jet. Dick Graham is a ne'er-do-well, who has been sheep raising in the low lands and lost his fortune.
Tom Wallace lives with his uncle, John Higgins, and Tom is the sole heir to his uncle's wealth. Joe Watkins, the sheriff, and Higgins are life-long enemies, and when Higgins discovers that Tom is in love with Fern Watkins, he threatens to disinherit Tom.
"Bat" Peters, reformed gunfighter turned prospector, travels to Chicago to collect on a business deal with a mine promoter who turns out to be crooked.