1924
To help secret serviceman Bill Parsons in pursuit of the thieving Benson gang wealthy criminologist Henry Avery sends his assistant Blinky to cover the waterfront while he attends a reception at the home of Mrs. Cornelius Westervelt. At the soiree he meets gang member Alice Carter while also discover the gang’s cache hidden there. Captured Parsons is saved by Blinky, and the pair foil the gang’s attempt to rob Mrs. Westervelt and her guests.
1931
Captain Angus Swope (Noab Beery), known as The Black Yankee, skipper of the Golden Bough, treats his crew shamefully and he treats women no better, as evidenced by his handling of a woman he has abducted, together with her baby daughter, Mary (Sally Blaine), from seaman Newman (Willard Robertson). When the woman dies as a result of his cruelty, he brings up Mary as his own daughter.
1938
Arrested for speeding by highway patrolman Bill Rolph (Robert Paige), J.W. Brady (Robert Middlemass), the president of an oil refinery, offers him the assignment to find the culprits who have wrecked his gas stations, hi-jacked his trucks and attempted to blow up his plant.
1923
Babs Van Buren saves her lover from the electric chair and at the same time extricates her older sister, Connie from a trying situation.
1916
Margot is the pawn in a game set up by her father, "Old Bill" Prewitt, and her husband, Tom Sloan. They use her to fleece gamblers until a gun fight results in serious injuries for both Tom and Bill. Bill thinks Tom is dead and takes Margot across country. He finally collapses from exhaustion and they are found by a trapper.
1917
When Mary and Fannie Graham, daughters of a good mother but a father with criminal instincts, are left motherless, Mary flees from her unhappy surroundings while Fannie, inheriting her father's disposition, remains and is raised as a thief.
From a Montana mining camp, a young man progresses to the society heights of New York, making his mark publicly as a dancer, but secretly as a gentleman burglar.
Nancy Glenn is a pupil in Pop Hogland's school for crooks. When, attired as a boy named "Spider", Nancy fails at her lessons as a pickpocket, Pop decides to pair her with Pliny Drew, a graduate thief and swindler.
