In order to help her poverty-stricken family, Jonnie Consadine, a strong-willed young woman from the Blue Ridge Mountains, comes to the city and takes a job in a mill, while her uncle, Pros Passmore, continues his endless search for a lost silver mine.
Ellen Shannon, the daughter of self-made Irish politician Pat Shannon, is engaged to Ted Breslin, but because Pat began his career as a menial laborer, Ted's mother, Mrs.
Trying to win the Three C's railroad line for his home town of Topaz, Colorado, Nicholas "Nick" Tarvin journeys to India to secure the famed jewel known as the Naulahka, which he plans to present to Mrs.
Iris Lee is reared in the small town of Dalton by her deceased mother's friend, Martha Kane, and when she reaches adulthood, Martha's son Jim falls in love with her.
Unrequited love rules the day as both wealthy Judith Sylvester and her invalid aunt pine for men who got away, but happiness lays ahead for one while hopeful dreams sustain the other.