Paul Beaumont, científico y humanista, después de muchos años de estudio, descubre una revolucionaria teoría, pero su protector (Marc McDermott) se la roba y, además, seduce a su esposa (Ruth King). La ofensa se sella con una bofetada que provoca las burlas de toda la comunidad científica. Beaumont huye avergonzado y se refugia en un circo, donde se hace famoso como el payaso "que recibe las bofetadas". Los caprichos del destino hacen que una noche se encuentre entre el público su pérfido benefactor, que se muestra interesado por la bella Consuelo (Norma Shearer).
Thomas Edinburgh is secretly in love with Carol, wife of the Reverend Luther McCall, and produces evidence that her husband was once an embezzler. Leaving for Cleveland, the minister meets his twin brother, Jordan, the real embezzler, who is evading the law. Luther is killed in a train wreck, and Jordan, assumes his brother's identity....
The wife of an American playwright in Paris becomes ensnared in the seductive wiles of an American Army officer, but her devotion to her husband convinces the officer to try to extricate her from the gossip and scandal that have ensued.
Some of the most sanguinary feuds in America have been fought out, not in the mountains of the south, but on the deserts of the great west, where cattlemen and sheepmen often dealt out death to each other with the aid of their old friends, Winchester and Colt. Such a feud is in progress between the men of the desert when Jack, a nomadic cowboy, wanders into the scene. He is outspoken against the outlawry, and the sheriff, in jest, hands him his badge and asks him if he can do any better. Jack accepts the challenge and arrests one of the most recent slayers.
Leonard Sheldon is the manager of a Mexican vineyard which is suffering from a diphtheria epidemic. Sheldon calls for a doctor and gets Katherine, much to the chagrin of the Mexicans. They've never seen a woman doctor, and their peasant superstitions lead them to believe that her forehead-mirror is "the evil eye," and that it's making their children die even faster.
