Mrs. John Cleveland, victim of an overly-jealous husband, adopts a child but, fearing to bring it into her own household, furnishes another home for it, and places the little girl in charge of a nurse.
Bored by the slow pace of life in her little home town, Helen Drayton rebels when her friends and relatives assume that she will marry her friend and escort, Chet Vernon.
Hal Arnold, a forest ranger in one of the California mountain reserves, in going the rounds, frequently passes old man Carroll's cabin, where Betty, a typical Sierran lassie, is a most magnetic attraction.
Joyce (Jacqueline Logan), a beautiful and efficient secretary, does her best to take in hand and reform shiftless stock clerk Jimmy (William Colllier, Jr.
Nick, the "swing" man in a trapeze troupe, loves Greta Nelson, the girl in the act; and Tony, the "flyer," incurs his enmity as Greta seems to favor him; thus Nick fails to catch Tony, and Tony is killed.
Boone Stallard, elected to the Kentucky Legislature by a mountain district, clashes with Randolph Marshall, a Blue Grass aristocrat who is engaged to Anne, the governor's daughter.
In 1840 Scotland, a young lass named Babbie revels in the country life and frolics with the locals, simple weavers whose livelihood is threatened by increasing industrialization.
Buck, who is preparing to enter a theological seminary, aids his brother and some friends who are fleeing from justice, and thus implicated he is sent to prison for 2 years.