Acting
Matchin' Jim comes to the "Flying A" ranch and is employed as one of its cowboys. His name is well justified, as he has a mania for matching coins. Not far from the ranch lives Ellings, an old placer miner. He has a daughter, Phyllis, whose sole delight in life seems to be in caring for a puny rose bush that she has planted at the side of her father's cabin. By diligent nursing she has managed to bring it to such a stage that it produces a single blossom. As Matchin' Jim is wandering near the cabin one day, hunting, a wild shot from his gun narrowly misses Phyllis and cuts from the rose bush its one lone flower. She calls to Jim, and when he comes to her she points out the damage that he has done. But Jim only grins and tells her that he'll match her to see whether she is going to be mad at him or not.
Tony comes to America virtually the slave of his padrone, who holds him in debt for his passage money. But Rosa Picciano marries him to escape parental discipline and Tony hopes for freedom at last, but Rosa makes it plain that she does not love him.
Esra Kincaid takes land by force and, having taken the Espinoza land, his sights are set on the Castro rancho. Government agent Kearney holds him off till the cavalry shows up and he can declare his love for Juanita, called “the Rose of the Rancho.”
Brandon, a surveyor, dreams of building a railway to the west. He sets off with his son, Davy, to survey a route. They discover a new pass which will shave 200 miles off the expected distance, but they are set upon by a party of Cheyenne. One of them, a white renegade with only two fingers on his right hand, kills Brandon and scalps him. Davy is all alone now.
Hector MacKnight, known to the townspeople as "Goofy" and an irritatingly terrible fiddler, is innocently drawn into a rigged poker game. A general fight brings the sheriff, and a chase ensues. Before the confusion is ended and Hector cleared, he meets Ruth Randolph and becomes involved in a circus while trying to recover the other half of her treasure map.
Jack is just a cowboy on the Gilman cattle ranch. Born and bred of the west, he is broad-mined and easy going. In direct contrast to him is Frances, a girl of the east, who comes to the west with Gilman's daughter. Frances has been born and brought up in wealth and culture and does not understand the cowboy who refuses to cater to her whim but who tries to dominate her. Later, when he proposes to her, she accepts him. She leaves for the east, promising to marry him when her course at school is finished. Jack sets about to build a cabin for their home. While at her home in the east, Frances is constantly being urged by Raymond Welton, a club man, to forget the rough cowboy, and to marry him.
Returning from service in the A. E. F., Dale Garland is given a rousing reception by his townsmen. County political boss Nebo Slayter persuades the community to nominate Dale for sheriff--thinking he can be easily manipulated--against John Millard, the incumbent, who refuses political compromises. Dale easily wins and pledges to give the citizens an honest deal. Millard's daughter, Alice, who is Dale's childhood sweetheart, learns of Slayter's dishonest schemes and sees his men murder a moonshiner for whom they had been furnishing protection.
Some valuable pearls are stolen in China and transported to San Francisco. Jane Hampton learns that her father is the smuggler, and that police are on his trail. Under pressure, she takes the pearls to a Chinese man named Woo Fong.
A diamond is stolen at a houseboat party given by the district attorney. He gives the thief a chance to return it by putting an empty box on a table and turning out the lights. When the lights are turned back on the box is gone, and the district attorney has a knife in his back and is quite dead. The police and the coroner arrive. There are several attempts made on the life of the coroner. Ruth Whitman is found hiding in a grandfather-clock, holding the gem box. She claims the box was pushed into her hands and she was pushed into the clock. The district attorney's butler/valet tells the coroner he saw who killed his employer and a few minutes later he is also murdered. The mystery deepens.
A drifter enters town to establish himself. Working as a cowhand, he meets the boss's daughter, who's eager to absorb some local color.
Jerry Jerome, a rich young Wall Street broker, follows doctor's orders and goes West to relieve strain. He stops at the ranch of Jim Yancy, then agrees to be the maid of the farmhouse to earn his keep, because he is attracted to Yancy's daughter Ruth. After a series of stagecoach robberies by a masked man wearing a blue bandanna, Jerry, the new man in town, is suspected.
Blamed for the theft of an orphans fund, Captain James Wynnegate flees to the West where he makes a new life with the Indian woman Nat-U-Rich.
Young lawyer Richard Potter and Irene Roberts are secretly engaged but Irene’s social climbing mother wants her to marry a wealthy man. To that end she schemes with banker David Winters to break up Richard and Irene and pair her with Winters profligate son Gerald Winters. They succeed temporarily but Gerald is a violent drunk who runs with a fast crowd and eventually ends up charged with murder. Though innocent Gerald has been well framed and faces the gallows until Irene appeals to Richard, now the District Attorney, for aid. At the eleventh hour a confession saves Richard, allowing Richard and Irene to reunite.
The Gray Ghost is a 1917 American crime-drama film serial directed by Stuart Paton. Chapters: 1. The Bank Mystery; 2. The Mysterious Message; 3. The Warning; 4. The Fight; 5. Plunder; 6. The House of Mystery; 7. Caught in the Web; 8. The Double Floor; 9. The Pearl Necklace; 10. Shadows; 11. The Flaming Meteor; 12. The Poisoned Ring; 13. The Tightening Snare; 14. At Bay; 15. The Duel; 16. From Out of the Past.
When cowboy Nick McCredie notices in a second-hand book an inscription to "Emily, the prettiest girl in school," he writes to her and learns that she is a lonely Eastern farm girl living with her grandmother. Instead of sending his own picture to her, Nick encloses a photo of his handsome friend Pen Walton.
This comedy-melodrama focuses on Marmaduke Grandon, who's a drug store clerk with aspirations to be a movie star.
A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.
Jim Rutledge is a newcomer to the Pecos country. Jim is befriended by Clem Vining, who has been constantly persecuted by the Long Loop gang.
Helen Salvia sets sail with her 4-year-old daughter for Panda, an isolated East African port, where she expects to join her Italian husband, Lorenzo, who deserted her a year after their marriage. Cochran, the burly first mate, and Harvey, the youthful third officer, openly vie for her favor, while Captain Glanville remains aloof. In Panda, Helen discovers that her husband has become a drunken derelict and returns to the ship, but Glanville is forced to buy her release from Salvia. Fearful of the implication, Helen returns ashore with her daughter, flees from Lorenzo's attempts to attack her, and is found by Glanville just as a typhoon breaks in all its fury. In regaining possession of the child from Lorenzo, the captain is wounded; and Cochran, covering their retreat, kills Lorenzo. Cochran pays for his daring with his life, and Helen is free to return to England with Glanville. It is considered a lost film.
Mark O'Rell is sent to New York by his wife's Aunt Cordelia to recover a valuable quilt. In the city he finds the quilt, discovers that it conceals stolen jewels, and in consequence is pursued by both police and thieves. Police catch the thieves, Mark gets the quilt, and he returns home safely.
