Gloria Hope

Sandy McNeil adopts strictly unconventional jazz ethics and against the wishes of her parents runs with a fast young set. An auto breakdown after a party places her in a compromising situation, and she grudgingly marries a wealthy suitor of her father's choice. When her husband's cruelty results in the death of her child, she leaves him and meets Ramon, an architect with whom she becomes infatuated. The return of his former mistress causes her to seek refuge with her cousin Judith, where she falls in love with Douglas, Judith's sweetheart. As Sandy refuses to return to Ramon, he shoots her and then kills himself. Douglas, taking the blame for her sake, is tried for murder, but Sandy rises from her sickbed and confesses in court; she succumbs after restoring Judith to Douglas.

A former Yale student returns to the land where his Spanish forefathers once reigned supreme and lives in the Mexican hills, occasionally riding into border towns, where he takes the law into his own hands and protects the weak from crooked elements. Known as Quemado, he prevents the marriage of a girl to a notorious desperado and meets Joanna Thatcher, an eastern girl to whom he makes the promise that she will someday come to love him. Joan becomes engaged to Gretorix, unwilling to admit to herself that she has become infatuated with the daring horseman. On Joan's wedding day, Quemado kidnaps her, forces her to admit that she loves him, and arranges to be wed by a parson on horseback as they ride furiously into the hills to avoid the pursuit of the angry Gretorix.

Wealthy Elias Graves builds his home on the top of a hill, where a group of squatters have taken up residence at the bottom. Many of the men in the squatters' village have their eyes on young Tess, and one of them, Ben Letts, frames Tess's father for murder. While maintaining her father's innocence, Tess must keep her love for Graves' son a secret, while caring for Elias' daughter's illegitamate child.

Danny, a ragamuffin orphan, is adopted by a brutal plumber and his frail wife. His fear of hunger, resulting from his foster father's indifference, at one point leads him to substitute for the plumber in repairing a leak, but he causes a flood. Later, Danny is instrumental in saving a policeman's life and in sending the plumber to jail. He finds new happiness with his foster mother on her parents' farm.

While in an army camp waiting to be discharged, Lt. Frank Hayden sees a fellow officer, Capt. Kincaid, attacking a girl. He stops Kincaid, thrashing him soundly in the process. However, to avoid a court-martial for striking a fellow officer, Hayden deserts and flees to the desert. He comes across Tom Doyle, who is stranded and dying of thirst, and takes Doyle back to his home. He meets and falls in love with Doyle's daughter Kitty.

Actress Marie Lamont (Phoebe Hunt) has been living well due to a string of lovers and has kept her daughter, Dorothy (Gloria Hope) sequestered in a convent far, far away from her fast lifestyle. But when Dorothy leaves the convent to come live with her mother, Marie decides to reform. She gives up her fancy apartment and her latest lover, Harvey Martin (Jack Holt), to concentrate on her daughter and her career, in that order. But Martin has fallen for Dorothy, and Dorothy cares for him too, even though she is already promised to a young artist, Geoffrey Hutchins (John Harron).

In the mountains of West Virginia, Alderson Cree is mortally wounded in an ambush by Kip Ryerson, after Kip's wife, Martha, seeks refuge at the Crees's home for herself and her stepdaughter, Eileen. Cree makes his young son, David, promise to avenge his death once he has grown into manhood. As David Cree runs for help, Alderson recants and instructs Martha Ryerson to release his son from his promise. However, to eliminate her brutal spouse, Martha Ryerson remains silent, and George Hedrick, the local storekeeper, leads a crowd to drive Kip out of town. Hedrick later announces Kip's death, relieving David of his obligation to his father. Years pass, and David, now an adult, is engaged to Mary Reddin. When Kip Ryerson returns to town, David's mother demands that he keep his promise to avenge his father.

Henry Baird, a young newspaperman with a second-hand car but little money, decides to raffle off the car at a county picnic, so that he can take out his sweetheart, Mabel Darrow, the daughter of a wealthy businessman. However, as soon as Henry gets the money, his tailor demands that he pay off his debt. Also, youngsters set the car on fire before he can give to the winner, Joseph Plant, whose wife Evelyn was formerly Henry's sweetheart.

Tex Benton, riding across the country, sees a turtle, catches a jack rabbit and tests out the old fable of the tortoise and the hare; when the rabbit wins, Tex vows to model his behavior on that style. In a border town, he rescues an Indian, "Bat," and the two become friends. In Wolfville, Tex enters a rodeo. Meanwhile, a stalled Eastern train carries Alice Marcum, the girl Tex decides he wants. Tex competes with an Easterner for the girl's attentions, but Tex, the "hare," loses to the Eastern tenderfoot, the "tortoise." Tex then concludes that he is not the marrying kind.

Tex Benton (cowboy star Tom Mix) wants to marry Janet McWhorter (Kathleen O'Connor), but her father (Charles K. French) will give his blessings only if Tex works on his sheep ranch. Tex, a cattleman through and through, refuses and gets his aggressions out by stirring things up at the local saloon.