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Edna Benson is left an orphan in an eastern city. She finds herself nearly penniless. John Benson, her uncle, who owns a desert ranch, writes her to come west and encloses her expense money. Benson's ranch lies some ten miles from the railroad through a desert country. On the morning of Edna's expected arrival Benson drives over. The girl has missed her train. The night previous the citizens of Mesa, a small desert town some thirty miles from Benson's ranch, have grown tired of a series of shooting affrays and have organized a vigilance committee. Corse Hazard, a crooked gambler, kills one of his customers in a fair fight, and immediately the vigilantes warn Corse to leave town, giving him twenty-four hours to make preparations. Corse Hazard leaves Mesa outfitted for the desert the same morning that Edna misses her train at the junction. He steers a leisurely course for another mining camp beyond the Benson ranch. Edna reaches Cerro at five o'clock in the evening. The train crew try to persuade her to go on to the next station, but she is confident that Benson will meet the train. Hazard goes into camp some twenty miles out of Mesa for the night. The girl spends a night of terror in the lonely deserted flag station. The following morning at dawn she strikes out for the ranch afoot. That morning Bradin, a road agent, his horse having cast a shoe, flirts with death by going at dawn into Mesa to have the blacksmith reshoe his horse. He is seen by the sheriff, who collects a posse and tries to arrest him, but Bradin escapes into the desert in a running battle. Edna is lost in the desert. She sights Hazard approaching and signals him. He sees the girl is helpless and defenseless and tells her that he is one of the Benson's men and he will take her to the ranch. Instead he takes her to a deserted desert shack near the Benson ranch. The girl battles with him. Jim Brandin's horse falls nearby and Brandin makes his way to the shack as a place of refuge from the sheriff's posse. Brandin is just in time to save Edna. A moment later the posse arrives and capture Brandin. The sheriff resolves to spend the night at Benson's ranch. That night while the sheriff sleeps Edna steals his handcuff key and frees Brandin in gratitude for what he has done for her. A week later she gets a letter from him telling that he has reformed, etc.

Jack Krone, a blacksmith, lives with his father and sister, Edna. The squire's son, George Burns, lives in ease and idleness. There are mutterings of war, and the local militia is in frequent ride practice. George stops to have his horse shod, and takes advantage of the opportunity to force his attentions on Edna. As he is attempting to forcibly kiss her he is knocked down by Jack, who reports the incident to his friends and George is expelled from the militia. The war breaks out and Jack goes to the front. Bitter at the southern boys, George secures a commission in the northern army, as he is the crack rifle shot of the locality, and sharpshooters are in great demand. As the fighting progresses and time goes on, little Bud Krone, Jack's brother, enlists as a drummer boy, and one day during an engagement, George is up in a tree picking off officers and sees him. Taking careful aim George brings the boy down. Jack looks at his dead brother for a moment, and then leaps towards the clump of trees from whence the firing had come. He sees George and shoots him through the shoulder, and when he discovers the identity of the man he has shot he attempts to kill him, but is captured by a squad of Union soldiers. Wounded, George goes home on a furlough, while Jack languishes in prison. Poverty has forced old man Krone to mortgage his property to Squire Burns, and the latter demands payment. George makes ardent love to Edna, and to save her old father she consents to marry him, not knowing that he is the slayer of her brother. Jack finally secures his release from prison and comes home, learning of the marriage of his sister. He sends her a note to meet him, and Burns sees them together, away in the distance and shoots Jack. Edna manages to support her brother to a negro's cabin, where he is hidden, and determines to ride to the nearest Confederate encampment for assistance. She dons Jack's coat and hat and mounts his horse. Burns sees her, and thinking she is Jack he lifts his rifle to his shoulder and takes careful aim. A storm is approaching. With a sacrilegious boast Bums says, "With my eye upon the sight, not even God can save him." And as he goes to press the trigger a blinding flash of lightning destroys his eyesight. Groping along in terror, he is harassed by visions of his foul deeds, and finally falls over a cliff. Edna reaches the soldiers and saves her brother.

Pastor Holt of Arizona has a daughter, Ellen, and a son, John. John is inclined to be a trifle restless under the home discipline. The pastor gives John a sum of money to deposit in a bank at Grey Rock. This money is for the erection of a new mission. Ellen meanwhile has sold her horse, Jim, to complete the sum necessary for the erection of same. Bill Evers, a gambling house keeper, is in reality the "Desert Scourge," an outlaw. He buys the horse of Ellen from a trader, and while robbing the stage the horse breaks its tether and returns to the parsonage. John Holt arrives at Grey Rock and loses both the money and his watch at the gambling hall. The watch contains a picture of his sister, and Bill Evers is greatly smitten with the girl's appearance. He meets through an inquiry in the newspaper, stating that the horse has returned, Ellen Hold, and falls in love with her. She reciprocates his affection. John is sent to the bank where he says he deposited the money. While en route he attempts to rob the stage to recover the church money he lost in gambling. He is wounded and the horse carries him home. Bill Evers, who is engaged to marry Ellen, is calling at the house. The posse follows the boy by a trail of blood and Bill Evers makes the great sacrifice of taking the boy's place and announcing his identity. He is removed by the posse but escapes, and the story ends in the reunion of Ellen and Evers.

"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.

Because Tom Perry, who is working for his father in a broker's office, takes the part of Edith Marsh, stenographer, when she resents the attentions of Bill Claire, he is discharged by the general manager, John Fownes. Tom says that he will marry the girl and his father threatens to disown him. Edith, in order not to jeopardize Tom's chances, moves away to another part of the city and takes a position in a dictaphone factory, scraping records. John Fownes stays at the office late one evening to finish up some work and is dictating into the dictaphone, when Bill Claire, whom Fownes has also discharged and who to drown his troubles has taken to drink, climbs into the window over the fire-escape surprising Fownes at his work. The conversation that takes place between them is recorded on the dictaphone, which Fownes has not had a chance to shut off before Claire kills him. Tom, whose father has asked him to meet him at his office that evening to see if they cannot come to some understanding, hears the shot and rushes into Fownes' office. Claire by this time has escaped and Tom is arrested for the murder. A box of old records is sent to be scraped at the factory where Edith is employed. She finds the record which was on the dictaphone at the time of the murder and rushes to the police headquarters with the evidence which clears Tom.

Dakota Dan, who runs the saloon and gambling hall, is refusing to take another drink with the boys, who commence to kid him, saying he's been scared to drink ever since he heard the new parson's daughter was going to convert him. Dakota flushes and replies half angrily that he has never seen the parson's girl and don't ever want to. However that afternoon Daisy goes to the saloon and invites Dakota to attend church. Dakota refuses her invitation. Daisy tells him she will make a bargain with him to tend his bar for five minutes if he will go to church the next day. Dakota is slightly startled, but he admires her grit and accepts the challenge. Daisy goes behind the bar. The men line up and she is about to serve a fresh guy when he suddenly reaches over and kisses her. Dakota immediately knocks him "cold," and, ashamed of his bargain with Daisy, grimly escorts her to the door. The next day he tells the men that if they don't accompany him to church he will close. They reluctantly consent to go with him. Daisy's father is very much pleased to see the harvest he is reaping, and after the service invites Dakota to take dinner with them. Dakota and Daisy soon learn to love each other and Daisy promises to marry him if he will close his saloon and try to control his temper. He promises. The following day "Ace" Farrell, an eastern gambler, favors the village with his presence and on seeing Daisy inquires who she is. The villagers tell him her history. "Ace" goes to the saloon and there makes insulting remarks about Daisy. Dakota deals him a stinging slap across the face. "Ace" is right back at him and a fierce scrap commences. Dakota throws "Ace" out of the door and "Ace" draws his gun and shoots. Dakota fires two shots and hits "Ace" in the arm near the shoulder. He crumples up on the sidewalk. Daisy comes along and, without giving Dakota a chance to explain, helps "Ace" to his feet and takes him to her father's house, where she nurses him back to health. Dakota determines to leave the country. He is riding away when he sees "Ace" and Daisy, who have been gathering flowers for the church. They go into the church. Dakota hears Daisy scream and follows them in. "Ace" attempts to kiss Daisy and she runs up to the bell loft. Dakota shoots "Ace" and he and Daisy make up their quarrel.

Prior to the breaking out of the Civil War, Col. Dayton, a widower with an eighteen-year-old daughter, Eleanor, resides in the old homestead at Ridgeville, Va. He goes to Boston on a business trip, where he meets a widow with a daughter of the same age as Eleanor. The Colonel falls in love with the widow, and after a brief courtship they are married. His business requiring close attention, he sends his new wife to the old home. Eleanor greets her stepmother and her stepsister, Maud, affectionately, but they treat her with disdain. Their haughty manners and overbearing manner gain for them the enmity of the negroes, and Eleanor's feelings are hurt when the new mistress of the house removes the picture of Eleanor's mother from the wall. Col. Dayton returns home, and Mrs. Dayton pretends affection for Eleanor, while in his presence, and completely deceives the Colonel, Eleanor refrains from telling her father what she has suffered at the hands of the step relations, and on the declaration of war be goes to the front at the head of his regiment. Sensational scenes of battle are shown, in which the Colonel is engaged. A month later the Northern troops capture Ridgeville and the boys in blue come triumphantly marching down the street. A loyal Southern woman defiantly unfurls the Confederate flag in her front yard and stands before it. The soldiers are prevented from doing her harm by Capt. Hammond, who gently takes the offending flag from her. The Dayton homestead is utilized by the soldiers as headquarters, and Mrs. Dayton quickly tells them that she is a Northern woman and introduces her daughter. She is charmed by the courtly manner of the handsome Capt. Hammond, and gives him Eleanor's bedroom, forcing her to reside with the old Negro mammy. Mrs. Dayton hopes to marry Maud to Capt. Hammond. Capt. Hammond, however, accidentally meets Eleanor at the well and falls in love with her, and the two meet clandestinely. Col. Dayton persuades the Confederates to make an attack on Ridgeville and recapture it. Hammond, knowing how serious the battle will be, asks Eleanor to marry him and she consents. They are joined in wedlock by the minister. While the ceremony is taking place Col. Dayton's regiment make a brilliant attack upon the city. Capt. Hammond is trapped as he emerges from the minister's house with Eleanor, and the raging Colonel tries to get at him, but is restrained by Eleanor, who finally persuades her father to assist her husband to escape. Eleanor tells her father of the inhuman treatment she has received at the hands of her stepmother and Maud, and the angry Colonel vows to avenge the wrongs done his child. Capt. Hammond rejoins his command and tries to rally his demoralized men. The fighting is desperate, but nothing can stay the exultant Southern boys, and the Union retreat becomes a rout. Once more the stars and bars float over Ridgeville, and the Colonel is the idol of the hour. Mrs. Dayton and Maud try to greet him affectionately. Bitterly he upbraids them for their conduct and declares: "The woman who cannot be a mother to my daughter cannot be a wife to me." Mrs. Dayton tries to plead with him, but he orders her from the house. The years roll by, bringing with them peace. Once more The Colonel is at his home with Eleanor. Eleanor, looking out of the window, sees Capt. Hammond coming, and with a cry of joy rushes to the door to greet her husband. The Colonel, perplexed for a moment, decides to accept his son-in-law.

Nat Boyd, a telegraph operator, deeply morns the death of his father, recently shot in the Civil War. He makes application for a position in the U.S. Secret Service and is accepted. He remembers a college chum, John Stilton, who is now a captain in the Confederate army, and whose father is a retired colonel. He manages to secure an invitation to visit the Stiltons, claiming that his health is affected by the northern climate, and he goes to work as a spy. General Lee makes his headquarters at the Stilton home, and Nat taps the telegraph wires, but is unable to discover the secret code until one day General Lee, suspicious of a click in the wires, has the code changed and it is blown out of the window. Nat copies it before the telegraph operator misses it and looks for it. Nat has feigned such ill health that the Stiltons invite his mother down to nurse him. She is a handsome woman and Col. Stilton falls in love with her and proposes marriage. She has become fond of the Colonel and accepts him, and she tries to dissuade her son from the contemptible work he is doing. John Stilton discovers the duplicity of his friend, and does not wish to expose him, as it would ruin his father's life and of Mrs. Stilton, for whom he has a deep affection, so he arranges false messages, which Nat intercepts and sends to the enemy. Mrs. Stilton learns of this and commands him to stop John Stilton, who has started for the front, threatening to expose her son if he does not comply, Nat goes after John, and is stopped by Southern sentries. In attempting to gallop past them he is mortally wounded. A terrible battle takes place, the Union army acting on the false information and being badly defeated. John Stilton conceals the actions of Nat, and tells his father that Nat died carrying false messages for John to the enemy.

Rio Ed comes down from the mountains and invites all the men in the saloon to drink with him. They are all afraid to refuse, excepting Dick Wayne, who tells Rio he is particular with whom he drinks. This infuriates Rio and he forces Dick to the bar and orders a drink for him. Dick throws the drink on the barroom floor, and deals Rio a stinging blow across the face with his open hand. Dick is pretty far gone with consumption, as a result of his dissipation, and the exertion is too much for him. He falls back weakly into the arms of the man nearest him, coughing violently. Rio, seeing Dick's weakened condition, does not continue the fight, but says he will get Dick into condition to fight with him. He takes Dick forcibly to his cabin in the mountains and there proceeds to nurse him back to health, with the one idea in view, that of getting Dick into condition to fight with him. Dick's sister comes to the town to search for her brother. When she finds him in Rio's cabin she is under the impression that Rio is nursing Dick for friendship sake, and neither man undeceives her. She tells Rio she will now take care of Dick and Rio allows Dick to depart with Madge. Dick's health improves fast and he is at last able to go to the village. On his first trip there he sees Rio and they go to the back room of the saloon to fight it out. Mercidio, a low white man, owner of the saloon, covets Madge, but has been ordered by Dick to keep away from her. Mercidio determines to get Dick out of the way and during the fight between Dick and Rio, Mercidio stabs Dick in the side with a knife which he has previously dickered for with a half breed in the presence of Rio. Dick is taken to his cabin and all are under the impression that the stabbing has been done by Rio, who is unable to prove otherwise. Dick's wound is not fatal and he is recovering when Mercidio comes to the cabin and forces his attentions upon Madge. Rio, who has at last recollected seeing the knife in Mercidio's possession, is on his way to the saloon when he sees Mercidio near the cabin. He tracks him there and through the window sees Madge struggling with him. He goes into the cabin where he forces a confession from Mercidio as to the stabbing. In a fight outside the cabin Mercidio is shot. The story ends with a pretty love scene between Madge and Rio.

Bill Wharton, his own worst enemy, because of his heavy drinking, has descended from being the best engineer on the division to a wiper. In a bar-room fight, one of the railroad men is killed, and Bill is arrested and sentenced to three years at hard labor in the State prison. Bill's son, Joel, who has left Bill when he was a mere boy, has risen rapidly in the railroad circles and is now division superintendent. Bill, realizing the disgrace to his son, should he learn of his penitentiary sentence, prevails upon his old friend, Robt. Hall, to write and tell Joel that he passed away suddenly. Hall, much against his will, does as requested. The three years pass. Bill is freed, and unable to resist going back to his old home, appears, one morning, hungry and tired, at the Hall kitchen door. He is kindly received by them and invited in. The same day, Hall receives a letter from Joel, stating that his work will bring him to his old home and he will avail himself of the opportunity to call upon Hall. Hall shows the letter to Bill. When Joe comes to see Hall. Bill stands outside, sadly, realizing that he is shut out from welcoming his son. Joel goes the next morning to inspect the yards. He is pleased with the way things look and is telling the yard superintendent so when he glances off and sees Alden, the assistant yard superintendent, drinking from a whiskey flask. He has Alden sent to him and tells him the company has no more use for him. Alden, in a drunken temper, swears vengeance, and that night goes to the Junction switch tower and, after overpowering the old towerman, throws the lever that will cause a collision between the eastbound flier and the special on which are Joel and his wife. Bill, who has started for the Junction, in order to watch Joel's special pass, sees that the switch is thrown and, realizing that something is wrong, hurries to the switch tower. There a fierce struggle takes place between Alden and Bill, in which Alden stabs Bill. Bill is barely able to throw the lever before he passes out, thus preventing the collision.

Master Bell, an old salt, receives word that Roderick Due, the former mate of a piratical craft, has escaped and is looking for him. Bell is greatly worried, for he has a chart which locates a wonderful treasure chest. Before he can leave the town. Due appears and hires some fishermen to attack Bell and gain possession of the chart. They assault the old man and he is getting the worst of it when Captain Rood and his sweetheart, Ethel, come upon the scene and rout the sailors, taking the old man, who is badly injured, to Ethel's home. Later he dies and gives to them the chart and instructs them how to find the treasure. Due learns of this, and when Rood advertises for sailors to man his ship, he and the fisherman, who got the worst of the fight, apply for positions and are taken on by the unsuspecting Rood. Rood and Ethel are married and start out in search of the treasure. Just as they arrive in sight of the land. Due and his men are plotting to take possession of the ship, when the boatswain, who is a friend of Rood's, overhears them, warns Rood, and takes Ethel to a small boat. Rood, with the cook, who is also loyal, tries to reason with Due. Due orders his men to attack the captain, but he locks the door and escapes with his wife. They arrive on the island, discover the chest in a cave and return with it to the ship. Due, in the meantime, having discovered the escape of the captain, with his men man a small boat and go to the island, but are attacked by Indians, who kill all but Due. They row towards the ship. The cook, who has recovered from his blow, sees them approaching, fires a cannon and kills them. Later the captain, with his chest, arrives on the boat to the joy of all.

Lieutenant Wade is the favored suitor of Ethel Brown until a young doctor comes to the post on a visit, who supplants him in her affections. The attention she pays the doctor at a ball nearly breaks his heart, and he passes a sleepless night. In the early morning he orders his horse and goes for a ride. A pioneer comes to the post and asks for a doctor to attend his wife, who is seriously ill. The young physician volunteers his services, and Ethel accompanies him. On the way a wheel falls off the buggy, and as he is trying to put it back he sees a band of hostile Indians riding toward him. Lieutenant Wade, from the top of the hill, takes in the situation and gallops to his assistance. As Wade dismounts and hurriedly tries to bolt the wheel on the doctor is overcome with fear and, leaping on the Lieutenant's horse, makes his escape. Wade and the girl jump into the buggy and a running fight takes place, in which the couple are compelled to take to the hills. They find a cave in which they remain all night. In the morning the Indians take up the trail, and to save the girl he boldly draws their attention to himself and makes an attempt to escape, leading them away from the cave. Wade finally takes his stand behind a boulder at the top of a mountain pass and fights desperately, though severely wounded. The doctor, in his mad haste to escape, rides the horse over an embankment and is killed. The animal limps back to the post, and the soldiers, reading the message conveyed, go out after the Indians. The redskins are driven off, after a fight, and the Lieutenant and the girl are rescued. After Wade is restored to health Ethel comes to him and assures him of her love.

Mildred loves her grandfather, Civil War veteran Jabez Burr, but her new stepmother wants her to be rid of his influence, because of his drinking.

When the Civil War begins, young Billy runs away from home to enlist in the Northern Army as a drummer; he's wounded in battle and taken prisoner. He manages to escape and deliver an important message to his commanding officer, but loses his life in the process.

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. Once the pony tries to pull himself up on his broken legs. But be falls back and breathes his last.

Rev. Horace Brightray, pastor of a New England village church, is ordered by his physician to seek another climate. He goes to Agua Caliente, where he attempts to hold services in the hotel dining room, but nobody attends but the hotel clerk and maid and dance-hall girl Bubbles. The proprietor of the Legal Tender saloon is very bitter toward Horace and commands them not to attend services. Horace is soon out of funds and ejected from the hotel. Sick and hopeless, he goes to the Legal Tender and slaps Frosty across the face with his hat, feeling sure it will mean death to him. Bubbles protects him and as he faints away, Frosty tells Bubbles he will make one play and if Horace wins, Bubbles may take care of him, but if he loses, Horace wins and Bubbles takes him to Frosty's cabin where she nurses him back to health. As a great concession, Frosty tells Horace he can have the dance hall for one hour on Sunday to hold services. All the dance-hall girls and gamblers attend the service. That night the Horned Toad, a bad man from Bitter Creek, comes into town. He reels into the saloon and roars at Frosty to line up at the bar. Frosty calmly draws his gun and points to the door and the Horned Toad backs out. Outside, he steps to the window and shoots at Frosty. Frosty runs from the saloon and chases the Horned Toad, who runs up behind a tree in front of Horace's cabin and as Frosty approaches, Horace steps from the cabin, between Frosty and the Horned Toad, and is shot. Before he passes out, Frosty asks him to marry him and Bubbles, and Horace performs the ceremony. Afterwards, Frosty tacks up a notice on the door of the Legal Tender that states that it is closed forever by the order of God.

Jim Hardy, serving time for safe cracking, receives notice that his term has expired, and tells his cellmate, Rusty, that he is going to start life anew and keep straight. Rusty laughs at him and tells him he will not get a chance to reform, as the police will hound him to death. Hardy receives a new suit of clothes and five dollars, and is met up the prison door by his daughter, Helen. He gets work in a grocery store, but a detective recognizes him and tells the proprietor that he is harboring an ex-convict, and Hardy is discharged. Helen has been working and saving her money, and she suggests to her father that they go west and start life anew in the west. Hardy is given a chance to make good, being employed as a watchman in the little western bank. Lieut. Baker, of the U. S. Cavalry, meets Helen, and the two young people fall in love. Hardy writes to Rusty as follows: "Dear Pal Rusty: Got a good job as a night watchman in a bank. Don't laugh. It's on the square. Can you imagine me watching a safe with twenty thousand in it and dead easy to crack, but I'm temptation proof as long as I can let the Amber Devil, whiskey, alone. Look for a letter from you shortly. Your old pal, Jim Hardy." A week later Rusty takes advantage of visiting day to secure access to the lockers, and escapes dressed in a guard's uniform. He makes his way to Hardy's town, and is taken in by the latter and fed and clothed. Detective Burton, on the trail of the escaped convict, follows his man. Rusty sees him in a saloon and rushes back in fear to Hardy. He plies Hardy with whiskey, and tells him that the detective will make him lose his Job, and that he had better crack the safe and get away with the money. Helen tries to interfere, but Rusty roughly tells her to keep still or he will tell her sweetheart her father is an ex-convict. That night they attempt to rob the bank. Rusty keeps watch while Hardy enters and blows open the vault doors. The detective is on the job, however, and Hardy finds himself looking into the barrel of a pistol held by Burton at the window. Rusty sneaks up behind the detective and deals him a crashing blow, rendering him unconscious. Helen, who has mustered up courage at the last moment to attempt to stop the robbery and save her father from crime, rushes up and is attacked by Rusty. Hardy runs to the defense of his daughter and in the scuffle is shot and killed, Rusty making his escape. The banker believes that his watchman has been killed by the burglar. Helen confesses everything to Lieut. Baker, who goes to the detective, when he has regained consciousness and persuades him to remain silent regarding Hardy's past. He tells Helen that she is not to blame for her father's sins, and marries her. Rusty flees into lands occupied by hostile Indians, and is attacked, meeting a tragic death.

Two-Gun Hicks, a particularly deadly type of gun fighter, with an absolute disregard of human life, arrives a stranger at Moose Gulch, where he calmly shoots Bad Ike, the bully, who has tried to make him drink with him. Hicks is not interested in the dance hall girls, but when he sees the "decent" woman, the wife of the town drunkard, he determines to secure her, she repulses him. Hicks, unable to understand her loyalty to her husband, finally concludes that she must love the drunkard, and this belief alone prevents him from killing Jenks. Hayes, a gambler, also desirous of securing Jenks' wife, incites the drunkard against Hicks believing the latter will kill him. Jenks, crazed by drink, gives Hicks until five o'clock the following afternoon to get out of town, threatening to shoot him if he is not gone by that time. Hicks, seeing his chance to win the woman, decides to kill Jenks. That night Mrs. Jenks visits him and exacts a promise from him to spare her husband. He gives in to her because the only true love he has ever known is for her. The next afternoon at five o'clock Jenks and the villagers wait for Hicks to either crawl or fight, but despite the temptation, the two-gun man leaves the town quietly, and Jenks is congratulated as a hero. In the Jenks cabin the grateful woman offers up a prayer for the two-gun man as he slowly rides over the hills He has passed out of the life of Moose Gulch forever.

Jim Gross is a drunkard and neglects his wife, Myrtle, and the baby. One night he comes home intoxicated and strikes Myrtle, who takes the baby and leaves. She finds a purse containing a ticket for Alaska; also some money, which has been lost by a young chap, Tom Winters. Myrtle makes use of the ticket and later we find her in an Alaskan village, where she obtains employment in a restaurant and is held in high regard by the miners. Winters and his friend Bob also come to the town, and Tom becomes very ill with fever and Myrtle is persuaded to nurse him. They fall in love and without telling him her past she marries him and they are very happy. In the meantime, Jim has been arrested for drunkenness and is serving a sentence. Upon his release he visits his mother-in-law's home and intercepts a letter from Myrtle, which tells of her marriage to Tom. Jim goes to Alaska and hunts up Myrtle and tells her that she must leave with him or he will expose her. Much terrified she consents and he is helping her pack up when Tom, who has been informed that a stranger has been hanging around his home, comes upon the scene and shoots through the door, which Jim has locked, and kills Jim. So Myrtle's past remains buried.

Shorty, after reading "Robinson Crusoe," falls asleep and dreams of hair-raising adventures on a cannibal isle. He is about to meet his fate in the boiling pot and be served up for the cannibal king's supper, when he wakes, to find the underbrush around him on fire from a lighted cigarette he has dropped, and the cowboys rushing to his rescue with buckets of water.

The Widow Boden abuses her stepdaughter Mary while lavishing every kindness on her own daughter Martha. A robber chieftain who happens along is much enamored of Mary and buys her from her stepmother with a bag of gold. Then the girl disappears. The fact is, she has been transported to fairyland by way of the well, where she is closely observed by wise old fairy Mother Hulda, who decides that Mary is just the wife for Prince Charming. The Prince loves Mary and they are betrothed, but Mary longs to let her stepmother know that she is still alive, and this is granted. The Widow Boden treats her cruelly, and this time she is handed over to the robber chieftain. Martha, meanwhile, has put on Mary's clothes and come to fairyland. But Mother Hulda discovers her deception in time to prevent her from marrying the Prince. Mary calls on her fairy lover for aid by means of a locket he has given her. He arrives, turns the trees into soldiers, and defeats the robber chieftain. Mother Hulda finishes up matters by changing Widow Boden and Martha into stone. Then the Prince and Mary return to fairyland where they reign together happily forever after.

Tom Halsey, a star reporter for the "Daily Press," is sent to the front for news. He is sandbagged by a couple of thugs hired by Bill Baker, a rival for the hand of Mary Gordon. They put Tom in a box car, which is sidetracked near the battlefield. An order has been issued by the commander that no newspaper men shall be permitted to witness the battle, consequently all newspaper men are held in the guard house until the battle is decided one way or the other. Tom is captured after he has seen most of the battle and put in the guard house with the other newspaper men. They beg Tom to give them details of the story, but he refuses, hoping to make a big scoop for his paper. Jack Chelsea, whom Tom had helped when he was broke, has enlisted and is a telegraph operator at the front. He hears Tom through a partition and telegraphs to him that if he will go ahead and tell the story he will telegraph it to his paper. In this way Tom's paper gets the news on the street before any of the others. Tom returns after the battle to claim Mary Gordon.