After an argument with his father, in which he is accused of stealing, Bill Carmody leaves home. His girlfriend Ethel is mad at him because of his carousing. So he heads out West, but he gets in a railroad accident and saves the life of Appleton, who owns a lumber mill. To reward Bill, Appleton gives him a job, and it doesn't take him long to discern that Buck Moncrossen, the camp boss, is crooked.
John Cranford is a U.S. customs agent dedicated to stem the activities of a gang of opium smugglers. After successfully closing the case, Cranford takes a vacation on Pidgin Island, near Kingston, Ontario. Here he meets the beautiful Diana Wynne, whose mysterious behavior both fascinates and attracts him. It turns out that Diana is herself a secret service agent, bent on trapping notorious pearl smuggler Michael Smeed.
Lumberjack Gaston Olaf is newly arrived in the lumber camp of Havens Falls, but it isn't long before he finds himself coming to the rescue of the lovely Rose Havens, who is being pursued by the nasty Lefty Red.
Greek Conniston, after living a life of ease and comfort, is forced by his millionaire father to get a job and earn his own living. While traveling West with his friend Roger Hapgood, Greek meets Argyl Crawford and, entranced by the girl, takes a job on her father's ranch.
When Richard Hudson receives a pair of silk pajamas from a friend in China, he is unaware that they are bewitched and that whoever wears them will be transformed into someone else.
When the Great War begins, English sportsman Cyril Hammersley is thought to be a slacker because he refuses to join the army for pacifistic reasons. His American fiancée, Doris Mathers, knows that he is not a coward, but she questions his patriotism when Sir John Rizzio intimates that Hammersly may be a German spy.
Bill Clayton is known as Broadway Bill because he is the most prominent Bill in the night life of the white way. Muriel loves Bill, but loathes his mode of life, and for her sake he goes to Underwood's lumber camp to work the alcohol out of his system. Hardigan. the foreman, thinks he is sent to spy upon his actions and makes several efforts to get rid of him, but in the end Bill thrashes the foreman, takes his place and wins the girl, though not before a curious chain of cross, purposes.
