Nora Highland

Cars and progress made an old carriage-driver jobless and so desperate that he becomes a gangster. When his own son starts a life of crime, he repents and gives himself to the authorities. When he lives prison, he will be happy to rejoin his family, as his son repented, too.

While he digs for gold day by day, "The Easterner," a young miner, gambles by night. A woman of the camps, named Moll, takes an interest in him and tries to break him of the habit that is his ruin. He laughs at her, but after she saves his life he promises to quit playing. Kate Gardner, a girl of the west loves him, and she is turn is loved by Bill Turner, a miner. Turner proves to her that the Easterner loves Doris Wendell, daughter of a wealthy land owner. She, with Moll, is instrumental in saving the Easterner's life when he is about to be lynched by a mob at the command of the jealous Turner. Peter Gardner, her father, covets the Easterner's claim and bribes Dick Weed, the gambling house proprietor, to help him get the claim. They attempt to make him gamble, but he is true to his promise. Later he discovers that Moll is his mother, whose passion for gambling he has inherited. Oby, a half-wit. Haunts the camp. Moll and her son try to live respectably after Doris has broken the engagement because the Easterner refuses to disown his mother. But the passion for gambling proves too strong. Moll rushes out of the house to the Hall of Chance. Her son is inveigled by Weed and Gardner into betting his claim. As he loses, Oby snatches away the tablecloth, jumbling the cards. Gardner, in a rage, strikes him down. His memory returns and he recognizes Gardner as the man who robbed him many years before, and shoots him. Dying, Gardner admits that Kate is Oby's daughter. Reunited with her father, she marries the Easterner.

George Otis, a dishonest promoter who uses his wife to forward his schemes, finds himself in danger of arrest for embezzlement and seeks to cover himself by borrowing from John Howard, his wife's former suitor. Failing, he sends his wife to visit Howard and obtain the loan, but the unhappy wife goes to her mother instead for the money. Caught by a second financial disaster, Otis tries again to persuade his wife to borrow from her former lover. Realizing at last his weakness and deceptiveness, she arraigns him for his liaison with Grace, a society girl, and he threatens to blackmail Howard; but Howard's denunciation renders him helpless, and Florence leaves him for a happier life.