Two confidence men pose as investors to fleece the denizens of a small town. They build a carpet-tack factory with the funds, but some stockholders are suspicious. Eventually, someone tries to take over the business by buying it from them. The film is presumed lost.
Youth meets Ambition and leaves Love, his mother, and his small-town roots for the big city. There, in his search for Experience, he meets Pleasure and hangs out at the Primrose Path with the likes of Temptation and Intoxication. Back home, Youth's mother dies, and Love tries unsuccessfully to reach him. When Youth's money runs out his newfound friends all leave him and he sinks into a life of drug addiction, aided by Habit.
Wilbur Stone is falsely accused of a crime, convicted on circumstantial evidence and "railroaded" to the penitentiary. As an odd coincidence. Frank Fink, a hardened degenerate, is sent up at the same time and he becomes a prison parasite on Stone. Both men are released about the same time.
Stella Le Vere, an ambitious but struggling actress, is abandoned by her husband and is forced to leave her baby girl, Grace, in the care of an orphan asylum. Later, the child is adopted by a well-to-do and kindly family named Thornton, who bring Grace up in ignorance of her identity.
Percival, a master-mind in the army of the deliberately unemployed, visits a fashionable restaurant and piles up a large meal by impertinent orders, but, before he gets a chance to eat he is detected and thrown out. He breaks a store window and so loudly proclaims his guilt that the police do not believe him.
Tim Clancy, an ex-convict, on the day of his release, returns home and is welcomed by his mother and sweetheart. He decides to turn over a new leaf. He applies and secures work at the Ganes shoe factory. Here he is recognized by a detective and when his record is made known to the management he is discharged. The inevitable follows.
Jim Allen accidentally finds a valise full of burglars' tools. At the same time he discovers that he has fallen heir to a $10,000 legacy. In order to secure the legacy he must be in a distant city on the following day. Being hard up, he decides to borrow the necessary carfare from his double, an unscrupulous broker named Harrington.
Bud Noble, a handsome specimen of manhood, is foreman on the Circle "D" ranch outside of Circle City, Idaho, and our opening scene pictures Bud as the cowboy roping and tying a steer. With its bucking bronchos, pitching mustangs, bucking steers, and the biggest novelty ever, the acme of all thrillers, "see Bud bulldog a steer." Only three men have successfully accomplished this feat and lived to tell about it. Then Bud receives a shock. The local operator appears with a telegram. "Your Uncle John dead. You are sole heir to his estate valued at several millions. Come to Chicago at once." The astounded cowboys tumble over with sheer amazement. Bud buys and the scene closes with a characteristic rush for the bar.