Billy Haven, a young rancher, accidentally discovers that clay found on his ranch will, when mixed with water, become the most beautifying mud-pack cosmetic that any young girl, or old woman, could desire. Then the land-grabbers, clay-speculators, cosmetic companies and a show girl or two show up to get a piece of the action.
Broncho Billy and his brother are both in love with the same girl, but she decides to marry Broncho's brother. One Sunday morning an outlaw creates a panic in the church by "shooting up" the place. The sheriff, who is the girl's father, is shot when he attempts to arrest the outlaw. Broncho's brother is offered the sheriff's star, but is afraid to take it.
Old Harry Todd and his daughter, Marguerite, are in the west prospecting for gold. They meet Broncho Billy, who takes dinner with them and later continues on his way. As he is riding across the plains thinking of Marguerite, he happens to see an Indian at the top of a hill, looking down upon the prospector and his daughter. Broncho Billy warns Todd and his daughter.
A poor man, the father of a young child, wants his offspring to have a Christmas such as every child is deserving of. He is penniless. For the love of his child he commits burglary.
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.
Avis and Franklin Hilliard are the spoiled, overbearing children of a wealthy father who has just died. Lord Cecil Oakleigh, a fortune hunter, is Avis's fiancée, although there is no love between them, he marrying her for her fortune and she marrying him for his title. Mr. Hilliard has left the superintendent of his mine in full charge of his fortune.
Jim Cameron becomes desperate at his failure to get work, and resolves to hold up the stage in order to provide necessities for his wife and sick child, Mildred.
Pete Larson is a brute whose battered wife, Anne, finally finds courage to leave. The woman gets lost in the wilderness and is taken in by a young hunter, who later proposes marriage. Mistakenly believing her husband to be dead, Anne accepts only to find her first husband returning to perform a bit of blackmail.
The action takes place in the second half of the 19th century in a small Californian town in the Wild West. Hans, a German émigré, opens a shop on one of the streets. To his annoyance, his fellow countryman, young and beautiful Lora, sets up a shop on the opposite side. There is fierce competition. Lora decides to take Hans to court. However, unfamiliar with German, the judge mistakenly marries them.
Poverty-row Western story of two young strangers -- Jack Hastings and Jean Meredith -- inheriting one-half of a map to a hidden gold mine. A villain, Wolf Santell, steals Jack's half of the map, which is enclosed in a locket, only to lose it again in the river.
The touring show's soubrette, Jeanne D'Arcy, as it turns out, is the long-lost daughter of Westerner John D'Arcy. While she is performing at the town opera house, D'Arcy is found murdered and young Jack is accused of the heinous deed.
The bandit leader is lying wounded in his cabin on the mountain when his confederates bring in a girl whom they have kidnapped while she was on her way to join her father after a trip east.
Robert Johnson tries to influence his daughter, Mary, to marry Dave Morgan, much against her wishes. Broncho Billy outwits the determined father, elopes with the charming Mary and makes her his wife.
Greed for gold, this is what has dragged many a man downward. Skinflint, a miser, not satisfied with the gold he boards, tries to make a practice of selling whiskey to the Indians, taking from them practically all the gold they possess for just a few glasses of the fire water. Skinflint might have succeeded had it not been for Bill Riley, a prospector, who quickly takes the bottle of intoxicating liquor from the Indian and smashes it on a nearby rock. Skinflint becomes enraged and determines to get even.
Dr. Roland White falls in love with Marguerite, the daughter of the postmaster in a small western town. He asks her to marry him, but she refuses, as she is already engaged to Fred Church, the express messenger. Some time later, after the proposal, the doctor receives an invitation to the wedding of Church and Marguerite, which shatters what little hope he had of ever winning the girl. A few days before the marriage is to take place. Church is held up and shot by bandits, and taken, in a serious condition, to Dr. White's home.
Reno Bill, a desperado, discovers the sheriff and the express agent in the act of holding up the stage. The next day Reno Bill is captured by Fred Church and his young assistant, when they find him annoying a pretty young girl. They take him to jail and when the bandit sees the sheriff and agent he contemptuously tells Church of their treachery.