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Edward Thursfield, chief engineer of the bridge building firm of Henry Killick and Company, is building the largest concrete bridge in the world. Employed in the New York office is a young man named Arnold Faringay. Arnold sees an opportunity of using money from the payroll for a big deal. He takes the money, but the market goes against him. He seeks to borrow the $20,000 from Walter Gresham, his sister Dorothy's fiancé. Dorothy learns from Arnold that Thursfield is the big power in the firm and decides to follow him to Atlantic City where he has gone to look over the site for a new pier. She meets Thursfield at Atlantic City, and playing upon his sympathy leads him to propose to her. The confidential clerk of Henry Killick, has become suspicious of Arnolds accounts, and when Thursfield arrives he finds the errors, and Arnold is forced to confess before Thursfield. Thursfield is stunned at the thought of his fiancée's brother being a thief and to save her the disgrace he pays over the $20,000. Arnold thanks him and is sent home by Thursfield. He meets Walter Gresham and tells him that his shortage has been made good by a friend. Gresham returns to his house and receives a note from Dorothy breaking their engagement because of his selfishness. He bursts into the parlor as Thursfield holds Dorothy in his arms and demands to know from Dorothy who Thursfield is. Dorothy introduces him as her fiancé, whereupon Walter, realizing who the friend was who paid the money, denounces her before Thursfield. Thursfield demands the truth, and she admits that she did have that purpose, but that she really loves him now. Thursfield refuses to believe and leaves her. Next morning, Arnold sees that copper has made a tremendous jump. He finds that his money has made enough to pay back his stealings. Thursfield, his love for the girl overpowering his resentment, forgives her and calls her back to him.

After a biblical and historical prologue detailing the evolution of the idea of democracy through the creation of the world, the flood, the crucifixion of Christ, the discovery of America, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the Civil War, the present-day threat to this idea by autocratic powers is dramatized. Fritz Schmidt, a German-American steel plant owner, and his son Oscar remain loyal to the Kaiser, while son George fights for the Allies. When the American army hospital where Louisa Schmidt works as a nurse is attacked by the Germans, Oscar, now a German soldier, assaults her, not recognizing his sister in the confusion. George, recovering in the hospital, kills his brother and then returns home to find his mother and a German spy struggling for some secret papers. George kills the spy, Fritz realigns his loyalty to the American cause, and the family is reunited.

A scientist discovers a death ray and locks it in a box, giving the key to his daughter, who soon finds herself hunted by criminals looking to steal the deadly mineral.

Texas Guinan, as deputy sheriff, finds herself in the situation where she must either renounce her womanhood and hang the man she loves or take off her official badge and become "just a girl." Of course, the hero had been wrongly accused, and is saved at the critical moment.

A young woman rejects the advances of a Mexican bandit. He kidnaps her sister, saying he will keep her until the woman changes her mind. She leads a posse to rescue her sister.

A ranch owner hires a young woman as foreman over a rambunctious group of cowboys.

Philip Nolan III refuses to fight for the cause of democracy. His father, Philip Nolan II, who has failed in his efforts to convince his son of the fallacy of arguments, then lays bare all the details of the shameful treason of his own ancestor, the first Philip Nolan, "The Man Without a Country." The father's story shows how the first Philip Nolan played into the hands of Aaron Burr; how Thomas Jefferson was elected president over Burr; how Alexander Hamilton prevented the conscienceless Burr becoming governor of New York; the duel between Hamilton and Burr; how Philip Nolan was later arrested on his wedding night for aiding Burr, who had conspired to start a rival government in the south to wage war against the United States, and how he was later banished from the United States for saying "Damn the United States! I wish I might never hear its name again," and how Philip Nolan died kissing the flag of the country he had execrated. Deeply moved, Philip Nolan III loses no time in joining the boys in khaki.

Mountain boy Steve O'Mara, living in the Adirondack Mountains, who loves to fight, is taken in by a well-to-do family after the death of his foster father. Steve is attracted by a young girl, Barbara, who is visiting his family, but she is repelled by his violent behavior. He fights another boy over her affections and then vows not to return until he corrects his ways and makes good. Ten years pass, and Steve has become a road construction engineer with the East Coast Railroad Company. He is trying to complete a railroad being built through his home town. Barbara is now engaged to Archie Wickersham, who for financial reasons is trying to prevent the railroad from being completed. After several delays, Steve brings his rival's unscrupulous business practices to light. When Barbara witnesses the fight that ensues between Steve and her fiancé, she runs off and gets lost in the forest. After a search party is formed, Steve finds her and she realizes that she loves him. Harrigan, one of her fiancé's henchmen, witnesses this tender scene and shoots Steve. Barbara then draws Steve's pistol and shoots Harrigan dead. Only wounded, Steve finally is embraced by Barbara.

Jaffery Chayne is the spectacular one of four chums, the others being Hilary Freeth, a literary man, Adrian Boldero, a short story writer, and Tom Castleton, a playwright. The story opens with Tom Castleton going on a voyage for his health and leaving with his friend, Adrian, the manuscript of the first novel he ever attempted. Shortly after Castleton's trip, he dies at sea and when word is received by Adrian of his friend's death, the temptation to secure the girl he loves by publishing his friend's novel and taking the money and credit from it is so strong that he succumbs and becomes the "literary lion of the hour." Jaffery returns to London with the widow of his associate, who is an Albanian chieftain's daughter, the last one of her tribe. Jaffery arrives in London with this strange woman and she is introduced into the household of Hilary Freeth and meets Jaffery's friends. Adrian brings his sweetheart, Doria, and when she is introduced to Jaffery, it is a case of love, on Jaffery's part, at first sight, he having no eyes for Liosha, the widow desperately in love with him. Doria, however, marries Adrian, supposed to be the great author, and Jaffery leaves Liosha in London and then goes on another expedition. On his return he finds Adrian dead. His love for the wife, Doria, is as strong as ever and he tenderly cares for her and takes charge of Adrian's affairs. When Jaffery and Hilary are appointed the legal executors of Adrian's estate they find the original novel in Castleton's handwriting and nothing that could be made into a second novel from the pen of Adrian. They realize that Adrian has stolen his fame and fortune and that his conscience really has killed him. Jaffery realizes that the knowledge of this will probably be the death blow to Doria, who has always worshiped Adrian as a genius, so he takes the papers home and puts them out of sight in his desk and then begins to go through his own experiences and from them he writes a novel, signs it with Adrian's name and gives it to the publishers as the second work of the literary genius. The novel does make a tremendous sensation. When Jaffery proposes marriage to Doria she refuses him. The former starts on a long voyage. Liosha begs to go, too. Jaffery consents. The result is the strengthening of the love of Liosha for Jaffery. Doria learns the perfidy of her late husband and offers to be the wife of Jaffery in gratitude for his self-sacrifice. Jaffery, however, discovers he loves Liosha and Doria releases him.

Jack Brookfield, a famous gentleman gambler of Louisville, Ky., finds that he is possessed of remarkable psychic power. His intuition in card games and other games of chance seems to be the result of mental telepathy or mindreading and his power over other men is a combination of hypnotism and will. He dominates everyone with whom he comes in contact. As a young man, Brookfield was deeply in love with Helen who answered his proposal with a request that he give her a written promise never to gamble again. Brookfield resented her distrust of him and they drifted apart. Years afterward, Brookfield, now conducting a famous gambling house to which only the wealthy come, finds that Helen, who has been married and is now a widow, is again in Louisville with her son Clay, a youth of twenty-one. Brookfield sees in the eyes of the boy the reflection of his mother, and his old love for the mother is awakened. Brookfield gives a theater and supper party in honor of Helen's return to Louisville, and while the guests are enjoying themselves, one of the habitues of Brookfield's place intrudes and makes himself obnoxious to both the men and women of the party. He has been annoying Clay Whipple ever since Clay first came to Brookfield's gambling house, and the night of the party, this annoyance reaches its height. For generations, the Whipple family has had a strange obsession in the form of a fear and unexplained dread of the sight of a cat's eye, and this fear is most marked in Clay. At the dinner party. Denning, the pest, is wearing a large cat's eye pin, and as he torments Clay, the boy's eyes fall upon the dreaded cat's eye. Immediately he becomes half-crazed but tries to control himself. Clay rushes from the room, only to be followed by the drunken, leaving Denning, who is bound that the boy shall look at the pin. Finally Clay, driven to desperation, picks up a heavy ivory tusk, which Brookfield uses for a paper cutter, and kills Denning. One of the guests of the party is Frank Hardmuth, the District Attorney of Louisville, who is in love with Brookfield's niece, Viola Campbell. Hardmuth is jealous of Clay, who is the real object of Viola's affection. As a witness to the murder, Hardmuth sees a means of putting Clay out of the way and he conducts the trial himself, obtaining a verdict of guilty, and a sentence of death. There seems to be no appeal from the verdict until Clay's mother is looking over some old letters finds one from George Prentice to her mother. George Prentice has become a justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S., and Helen goes with Brookfield to obtain Justice Prentice's help. The Justice agrees to be a witness for the defense. The Justice gives his testimony at the trial and then he and Brookfield, who has recognized in one of the jurors a mind susceptible to his telepathic powers, tries to project, by telepathy, the thought that Clay should be acquitted. Frank Hardmuth, the prosecuting attorney, is now candidate for Governor and just before the first trial, Hardmuth and his corrupt political associates had tried to murder the then-Governor of the State, Scovill. Failing in the first attempt, Hardmuth had called at the gambling house where, sitting with Brookfield, discussing the attempt, Brookfield had thought of a way of killing Scovill, which thought was telepathically transmitted to Hardmuth, and when the murder occurred in exactly the way that Brookfield had thought of he realized and felt that he was partially guilty. While he and Prentice are awaiting the verdict in the second trial, the actual murderer of Scovill, a broken-down gambler named Raynor, comes to Brookfield seeking information about Hardmuth. Brookfield's suspicions are aroused and through the force of will power and hypnotism, he makes Raynor confess that Hardmuth instigated the shooting. He then telephones the news to the papers, believing that the mental reaction in the minds of the people against Hardmuth will influence the jury in their verdict. This actually occurs and a verdict of "Not Guilty" is brought in. Freed from the law, Clay is still afraid of the cat's eye, but Brookfield forces him to realize that it is a purely mental state of mind and makes him get the cat's eye pin and hold it before his eyes. And finally, to prove that Clay is entirely cured of that fear and also that he is not a coward, Brookfield sends him to Hardmuth's hiding place to bring Hardmuth back as he intends to help him escape, feeling that Hardmuth was more or less the victim of his telepathic suggestion. This Clay does, and Viola realizes that her sweetheart is now worthy of her love. Brookfield promises Helen that he will quit his gambling and she accepts his word for it, and the old romance is completed.

Ne'er-do-well Joe Louden scandalizes his small town and especially the proper Judge Pike. But through the love of young Ariel Taber, Joe shows the town who the real scoundrel is.

John Glayde is a stone-hearted man intent on wealth to elevate his family, losing his wife to another man in the process.

Emmy Morgan lives with her parents and sister in humble circumstances far from the big city. Emmy's only goal is to marry well in order to attain all the luxuries in life. Her sister, on the other hand, is content with her humble surroundings and modest marriage. After her father dies, Emmy persuades the family to use the insurance money to move to the city. There she meets Chanler, an author, and wins his affection. When the writer goes to Virginia for a rest after finishing his book, however, Emmy stays behind and marries an elderly rich man. She gains her dreams of luxury, but realizes that money cannot compensate for love. After her husband's death, Chanler returns, but having discovered Emmy's shallow values and disloyalty, he rejects her. Emmy then attempts to retrieve all that she has lost, but after pursuing a series of wealthy men, she sadly realizes that she has lost the greatest prize of all, love.

Major Drayton, an Englishman living in America with his daughter Viola, goes to England on business leaving his attorney Nevinson to look after Viola. When war is declared, Drayton joins his regiment and sends Nevinson $30,000 to invest for Viola. After learning that Drayton has been killed, the Nevinsons lose the money in speculation and must take in boarders. Viola, who dreams of being a fairy on the stage, runs away from the drudgery and harsh treatment and joins the chorus of a musical comedy, but again she is treated brutally. Terrified when, dressed as a fairy she is lifted into a cloud, she runs away and meets a waif sleeping in a barrel; the waif thinks that Viola is a real fairy and saves her from freezing. When word arrives that Drayton is alive, the Nevinsons offer a reward for Viola's recovery. After a policeman finds the children, Mrs. Nevinson sells her possessions to repay Drayton, who returns to raise Viola and the waif.

Claire Martin, niece of the wealthy Mrs. Taylor, suffers from loss of memory. Under the effect of this, Claire acts as an entirely different person. She wanders through the woods seeking shelter and food, and finally reaches a cabin temporarily occupied by a New York sportsman, who is fishing and hunting in the woods. For a week, Claire accepts the shelter from this sportsman whose love grows with each day's stay. Finally a strange rider passing the cabin asks for a drink, and Claire in her innocence shows her admiration for the new man, making him finally accept the temptation of her eyes to kiss her. At this moment Houghton, the sportsman, returns and bursts into the cabin. He drives out the stranger and then takes a knife and marks the woman so that she will always remember that her love must be for him alone. Houghton returns to New York. While walking down Fifth Avenue he sees in a photographer's showcase a picture which closely resembles the girl he thinks he lived with in the woods. He finds out who she is and decides to visit Great Neck and see if it is the same girl. Returning to his boat, Houghton looks at some pictures which he had taken of the girl and decides it must be she. He returns to the grounds of Mrs. Taylor's home and meeting Claire declares she is the woman who was with him at the cabin. Pushing back the dress from her shoulders, he points to the scar. She begs him to tell her what he knows about the scar, and he thinking she is bluffing, tells her to come to the houseboat and he will tell her. There Houghton proves that she must have been with him at the cabin and when he demands that she love him now as she did then and attempts to take her, she picks up a knife from the table and kills him. Kent, who has been over to the Yacht Club to a committee meeting, sees this when returning to his launch. He rushes to the boat and carries the fainting body of Claire home, gets her to her room and calls the doctor to see if he can help her. The doctor declares that the girl is guiltless of the crime, having gone back to her old personality, and they decide to make the case appear as one of suicide. When Kent is returning to the boat the following morning he finds there some pictures of her and her scarf, but when he himself is charged with the murder by the man who heard the quarrel, he is made to believe that Claire is innocent by Kent and the doctor, who point out to him the terrible weakness of circumstantial evidence. After Charlie goes, the doctor tells Kent that Claire needs care and attention and must be protected, and Kent in his great love takes her to his heart.

Edward Swinger contrives to win the hand of the lovely Caroline Pickering by selling her father his business - a business that doesn't actually exist.

Meg Carter is the daughter of the man who runs the "Hell's Agony" saloon. He is killed in a row, and Meg takes it upon herself to keep the business going. This requires her to mix in and put a stop to any and all fights, which she does with the assistance of her constant companions, her two revolvers. Brian McTavish, who is supposed to help maintain law and order in the town, tries to take advantage of Meg, and a man by the name of Bad Lands O'Connor prevents him. For this McTavish determines to get even. A number of murders have been committed near O'Connor's cabin, and McTavish fastens them on his rival by lying. The crowd is about to hang the innocent man when Meg effects his rescue. She gets McTavish to consent to a test of marksmanship with her and defeats him, the life of O'Connor being her prize. There is a wedding in town shortly and Meg and O'Connor are the principals.