Writing
A wanted-fugitive, called "Nevada," is wounded by a pursuing posse of lawmen, and is left to die on the desert by his companion, Bill Hall. He is rescued by a young rancher, Ben Ide, who is in love with Ina Blaine, daughter of a neighboring rancher. While "Nevada" is recovering, he and Ina fall in love but, through his loyalty to Ben, he sends her away. Going home, Ina falls into the clutches of Bill Hall, now heading a gang of rustlers, but the real leader is Les Setter who is posing as an honest rancher, and he has designs on Ina himself.
The efforts of an elder brother, who is sheriff, to save the younger from a lynching, the latter having been falsely accused of shooting a girl.
Gold miner Jim Golden is in love with Miss Dot, the local postmistress, but he has a reputation for being somewhat lazy and shiftless. One day he finds a baby that had been abandoned by local Indians, adopts it, and begins to work his claim again. Parky, a local thief and swindler, finds out that Jim has finally struck gold, and schemes to trick Jim out of his claim and kidnap Miss Dot while he's at it.
Geoffrey Tempest is desperately in love with aspiring writer Mavis Claire, a tenant of his boardinghouse. Unable to marry her due to his poverty, in his anger, he curses God for abandoning him. Soon, Geoffrey meets Prince Lucio de Rimanez, a wealthy, urbane gentleman who informs Geoffrey that he's inherited a fortune, but that he must place himself in the Prince's hands in order to enjoy the fruits of his inheritance. What Geoffrey doesn't know is that Prince Lucio is actually Satan.
The rancher Jeff Bransford returns to his ancestral acres and finds them heavily mortgaged and about to be foreclosed and is defended by hired men with guns.
Dick Rainboldt (Carey) signs up to work at a gold mine without realizing that he's being hired as a strikebreaker. He takes the job primarily because of a pretty girl who lives in the town. The superintendent and manager of the mine convince Rainboldt to blow up the mine and make it appear like the strikers did it. But Rainboldt turns the tables on the plotters and reveals their scheme. The mine owner rewards him with a big assignment and the girl promises to marry him.
A man is shipwrecked on a South Seas island, and although he has a fiancee back home, he falls in love with a Polynesian girl. When his fiancee finally finds him and arrives on the island to take him home, she finds out that he refuses to leave the local girl, who is now the mother of his child.
Jeffrey (Matt More), a jewelry store clerk prevents a robbery and, as a reward, given a vacation in Honolulu, provided that he transports a valuable emerald to the Hawaiian Islands. On the boat he meets a blonde named Mary (Dorothy Revier) whom he mistakes for a jewel thief called Blonde Mary (Hazel Howell).
A miner's happiness is destroyed when a rival steals his mine. He becomes obsessed with revenge, and plans a trap for the man who took his mine.
Will the orphan girl win her hero in spite of scheming relatives who seek to keep her in the background?
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.
The Thunderbolt Strikes
Gilead is a lumber town that is dominated by two branches of the Kidder family: the puritanical, ultra-conservative side led by Enoch and his son John, and the hedonistic branch led by Enoch's brother Aaron. Aaron plans to sway John to come over to his side by using a young girl who has lost her memory to lure him over, but when he kidnaps her John sets out to free her. Complications ensue.
John Harley leaves his milkman job to take possession of half of a cattle ranch while waitress Sallie Summers goes west on a similar mission to take her half of their shared inheritance. Together, Harley and Sallie fight for ownership of the ranch with foreman Buck Osborne and his gang, who, to scare off the new owners, stage fake holdups, Indian battles, and gunfights.
Eve Underhill quits her job in the "want ad" department of a San Francisco newspaper and heads for Eden, Arizona, to answer its advertisement for a lady mayor. Upon her arrival, the womanless town hails her as boss, and she initiates a cleanup campaign. A romance develops between her and Catamount Carson, mayor of the rival town of Catamount. Complications revolve about the efforts of Catamount Carson's evil cousin, Ambrose Carson, to inflame a dispute between the two towns over water rights.
During his lifetime John Dorgan is unsuccessful in his attempts to cure his son, Jimmy, of his spendthrift ways, but his will leaves only a part of his fortune to Jimmy, while explaining where to dig for the rest.
At a remote Canadian trading post, Pierre Baptiste, a simple French Canadian, loves Marcette, the storekeeper's daughter. In midwinter, Stannard, a stranger from England, arrives in search of a gold claim and infatuates Marcette. Urged on by Nefferton, a supposed friend who plots to steal his claim, Stannard sets out on the eve of a storm; and Marcette, fearing for his safety, sends Pierre after him.
Steve Packard is the ne'er-do-well son of an Arizona ranching baron. Upon his father's death, Steve returns from his days as a South Pacific beach bum to protect his father's estate, which has fallen into the hands of Steve's estranged grandfather. The grandfather's foreman, Joe Blenham, attempts to wrest the ranch from Steve's rightful inheritance, whether the means are legal or not.
Posing as relatives, Ralph and Helen Gordon visit Col. Moncrief Gordon's Kentucky mansion, hoping to marry Helen to the colonel's son, Donald. The colonel agrees, but Donald balks at the suggestion, then reveals his secret marriage to Alice Brown. The colonel turns them out, and Ralph conspires with Bob Thurston to frame Donald for theft of Colonel Gordon's wager money and to shanghai him. After 3 years Donald discovers the source of his misfortune, returns, finds his wife, hears of a plot against his father's best racehorse, wrings a complete confession from Thurston, and saves the Derby for his repentant father.
Cowhand Jim Cleve is wrongly accused of murder and rescued by Jack Kells, leader of a band of Idaho outlaws known as the Border Legion. But when the Legion takes Joan Randall prisoner and leaves Cleve to guard her, he realizes that he cannot remain part of an outlaw band and decides to rescue Joan.
