Seeing cattle dying of thirst, a stranger shoots a hole in Hoades water pipeline. Hoades is hoarding water trying to drive the ranchers away. Hounded by the law for stealing a pie, the stranger sees a chance to redeem himself by forcing Hoades to sell his pipeline and leave the area.
A young man inherits a mansion in a Florida swamp from an uncle he never knew he had. When he, his assistant and the estate's executor arrive at the house, the audience catches sight of someone crawling in the window, though the house is supposed to be unoccupied. As the house staff begins to arrive they sense a strange presence in the house, and when a young woman no one knows runs into the house to escape a knife-wielding psycho, the occupants realize they may be in danger from both outside and inside the house.
Wonder dog and horse belong to Pattie, the "wild girl" of the title, who rejects a proposal from uncouth mountaineer Lige Blew in favor of romancing handsome photographer Billy Woodruff. Taking umbrage to the girl's decision, Lige frames Pattie's granddad for murder.
A railroad engineer and his wife try to stop a gang of robbers from holding up their train.
Hearing his brother the Express Clerk is in trouble, Bob Williams rides to the Express Office only to find the safe open, his brother and the money missing, and himself accused of the robbery. To clear himself he trails and finds the outlaws engaging them in a fight. But during the melee, the gang leader double-crosses his men and sneaks away with the money and Bob now has to catch him.
A US Army officer is sent undercover into the hills of Mexico's Baja California region to find and bring down the madman Crando and his group of crazed followers, who are setting up their own criminal empire spreading from Mexico into the United States.
On the American frontier in the last decades of the 19th century, Billie is a female cowboy who fights a series of bad men in this film serial.
Lure of the Circus is a 1918 American adventure film serial directed by J. P. McGowan.