Marjorie Wayne, the new school-teacher, comes to town and boards at the same ranch where Broncho Billy is foreman. Broncho Billy falls in love with her winsome ways and proposes to her. She tells him she does not love him, but expresses a wish that they be good friends. Her sweetheart from the city comes to the ranch and she marries him, much to the chagrin of Broncho Billy.
Bob Dean, the deputy sheriff of Tonopah County, has fallen in love with Nance O'Brien, a bewitching little western maid, whose brother, as he supposes, works a claim on a neighboring hillside.
Jack Hartley, the foreman of the Triple X Ranch, is engaged to Nellie Monroe, the ranch owner's daughter. A quarrel starts between Jack and "Red" Williams, a cow-puncher, when the latter first makes advances to Nellie, and second, when Williams abuses a faithful Indian ranch hand. On this latter occasion Jack is unable to restrain his temper.
The girl gives herself to one of the men to escape a worse fate, though she separates from another lover to do it. Later she discovers in a dramatic way that her lover was a poltroon and turns to her husband for protection.
Reuben Ellis and his daughter, Belle, are in hard financial straits. Burdened with debts and pressed by persistent creditors, the old man finds but one way to meet his obligations, and that is mortgaging the ranch. Belle tries to console him, but agrees that they must borrow money. Ellis rides into town and applies to a money-lender for a sum sufficient to meet his debts. Walker, the loan agent, agrees to ride out to the ranch and look it over, but after he has viewed the ramshackle buildings and pitiful collection of household furniture he shakes his head and says the place is not worth a cent.
The scene opens in a backwoods hut, the home of Dave Barlow and his stepdaughter Anna. Barlow is one of a party of timber thieves who have been working stealthily and to good profit in the government forest reserves on which property they live.
Hiram Matthews, a western ranchman, owns an apple orchard which borders on the property of Jesse Forsyth. The former and his wife are picking apples in the orchard from a tree, the branches of which droop over the fence of the Forsyth property. Forsyth and Matthews have never been on good terms and when the former, who has brooded long over supposed ills done him by Matthews, finds this latter and his wife trespassing on his property, he orders them off at the point of a shotgun.
Allan Ardmore and his sister, Edith, two young eastern people, pay a visit to their uncle's ranch in Arizona. Young Ardmore has suffered a physical breakdown and is seeking to regain his health. Albert Weston, his uncle, believes in the doctrine of "back to nature" and sees plainly that what the boy needs is fresh air and plenty of rough, hard work.
'Red' Bowman is a worthless renegade, an alleged rustler, to whom fate has been unduly kind to allow him to escape so long the honest judgment and double earned punishment. His daughter, a curly-headed ragged little sunbeam, keeps house for him as best she can, accepting with model fortitude her brutal father's blows and lashings. When he beats her too mercilessly she runs away, if she can, to hide until his anger cools. One day he is interrupted in his amusement of "lickin' the kid" by a group of stern, determined cowboys, who threaten to lynch him if he dares whip the little girl again. 'Red' slinks away and postpones the lashing for another time. That night, he and a pal, another black-hearted scoundrel, make a raid on a bunch of cattle, but are caught in the act.
Convict No. 999, lonely in his prison cell, is handed a letter one morning from his mother. The letter states that the enfeebled old lady is ill and without food or money. The convict's heart saddens as he recalls his life of crime and that he is responsible for the poor old mother's want. He prays for the opportunity to redeem himself.
"Snake" Williams, typical bad man, and a little group of cowboys are found loitering lazily about the Snakeville, Ariz. barroom, when the noon-day stage coach out of Phoenix rumbles around pike and deposits one lone passenger. Interest is immediately aroused and as the stage coach pulls out, Snake, the constant bully, sidles up to the newly arrived stranger to inquire the latter's business, explaining at the same time that although the town has no mayor or reception committee, he will be pleased to do the honors.
The story concerns Bill Dunham, a droll cow-puncher, who finds that home without a wife may have its advantages, "but durned few," and a good woman who can sew on buttons and make flapjacks is worth more than much silver and gold and the liberties of single blessedness.
Will Talbot, a miner, is severely injured in an explosion of dynamite on his claim and his life is saved through the aid of his faithful Indian servant. The Indian carries him to their shack and rides to town for the doctor. When the latter arrives he finds that Talbot has not only suffered severe face burns, but seems to have also lost all knowledge of his identity, a species of insanity occasionally the result of a violent shock.
Frank Wendell, a ranchman, also the sheriff of his county, is about to leave home on the rounds of duty one morning when a buckboard drives up to the house, and a gentleman, whose careful grooming and style of dress signifies a man from back east, alights and presents Wendell with a note from a former friend of the ranchman, introducing Mr. Frederick Church, who desires to spend a few weeks on Wendell's ranch for the purpose of bettering his health. Unsuspecting the true character of the stalwart Easterner. Wendell welcomes him and, with the big hospitality of the Western householder, tells him to make himself at home. A month goes by and with its passing a tragedy. Wendell returns home one evening to find the Easterner and his wife and child gone.