Writing
Four "Picture Brides", from New Orleans, arrive in the Brazilian jungle on a riverboat, brought there to marry workers at Lottagrasso, a remote mining site of the Standard Diamond Mines. Also on the boat with the four "mail-order" brides (Americans Mame Smith, Flo Lane, and Gwen from England and Lena from Europe) is Mary Lee, a frightened and innocent girl, who has come to see the mine's brutal supervisor, Von Luden, about a job.
Bill Sanford, once a first-rate railroad engineer and happy father, is victimized by bootleggers and soon becomes known as the village drunkard. His daughter, Ruth, a stenographer, is in love with her employer's son, Harry, but his father, Rand, opposes the match, though he consents to it when Sanford seems to reform.
A wealthy minister in a mining town is something of an advocate for the miners' safety, but he doesn't really get involved in the issue. He is soon snapped out of that attitude, however, when his daughter is trapped underground in a mine explosion, along with the mine's owner.
Following the Spanish-American War, a soldier is given the assignment of finding the leader of a band of rebels in the Philippines. In order to do this, he must romance Roma, a cabaret spy working for the rebels. This does not please the daughter of his commanding officer, whom he is romancing.
The marriage between Donald and Flora Brookes is under pressure. Donald has eyes for a new girl, innocent at first, but more and more affectionate. But the new girl is unstable and dramatic.
Country girl Sheila goes to work in a city department store. After a quick courtship she marries Ray Underhill, unaware that he is a car thief.
Mrs. Penfield, better known as Penzie, is one of the inhabitants of a tenement neighborhood known as "the Custard Cup" because of its oval shape. Penzie is a widow who lost both her husband and son in the influenza epidemic of 1918 and 1919. She has found fulfillment by taking in three orphans. One of the Custard Cup's other residents is a counterfeiter, and when the police are too hot on his trail, he leaves a package with Penzie and sets a boat aflame when he tries to destroy some phony bills. When the gang is rounded up, Penzie -- who has been looking for one of her adopted children -- is found at the hideout and arrested.
A naive youngster is sold a phony mine.
The Escott family, on their way to Montana, is attacked by Indians. Army Lt. Joe Lanier finds little Elsie Escott, the only survivor,
An actor, Julian Lorraine (J. Frank Glendon), mistakenly believes his wife Viola Lorraine (Alice Lake) has been unfaithful. Complications and tears and scorn follow.
