The story takes place in Monte Carlo, where the impoverished Julian proposes marriage to the wealthy Dora, only to be turned down by the girl's mercenary mother.
Captain Mills is jealous of Jim Clifford, his fellow officer at the British War Department, so he steals an important document in an attempt to make Clifford look bad.
Jim Blake, the playboy son of a New York millionaire, heads west to prove himself a man. He goes to work on his father's ranch in Wyoming, and eventually wins over the locals by turning the tables on a town bully and trying to collect damages from a railroad magnate, whose trains have killed many of the Blake ranch's cattle.
In the future (1921), an alliance of several foreign countries plot to attack the US. American officials, coming to the realisation that the country is basically defenceless, offer $1,000,000 to anyone who can come up with a weapon to defeat the invaders.