In their small village, Romanian peasant girl Katinka Veche falls in love with the studious Jan Drakachu. Jan wins a scholarship to an American university eventually becoming a successful engineer. Unbeknownst to him, Katinka, whom he had to leave behind in the village, is sold into slavery by her cruel, dissolute father. Her owner, Victor Dravich, beats her into submission forcing her to become his mistress in his Syrian gambling den. When the house is raided, Dravich takes her on his travels around the world until they finally settle in a small Arizona mining camp. Broken, she sees Jan but is too ashamed to speak to him sending instead for her old tutor Boris. Upon arrival Boris kills Dravich but is shot by the sheriff. Katinka, now free, follows Jan to New York. After further travail the pair are finally reunited.

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.

Ezra Hickman, of Kankakee, is a political aspirant. At a reception in Washington with his wife and daughter Amy he meets the Ambassador of Selim Bey, the ruler of a small European kingdom, Vergania. The Ambassador, seeking an American girl for his ruler, paints a glowing picture of Vergania to Hickman's wife, with the result that she persuades her husband to accept the American Consulate at. Vergania. Amy, the daughter, is enamored of Lieutenant Brice of the U.S. Navy, and reluctantly she agrees to leave him and go with her family.

To start a little in advance of our story, Lord Rintoul, of the English nobility, finds a little Gypsy girl three years old, who had been deserted by her parents. Fifteen years later, Gavin Dishart, the Little Minister, receives an appointment, his first, at Thrums, Scotland. This was made possible through the self-sacrifices of his widowed mother, to educate him for the ministry. The community of Thrums is made up of weavers, who work hard, have little and accomplish much. They are ultra-religious and look upon their pastor with such reverence that he is a little lower than the angels. While naturally intelligent, they are grounded in dogma and intolerance. Just after the Little Minister takes charge of the "Auld Licht Kirk" and the Manse, the weavers resent a reduction, by the manufacturers, in their pay and a strike is declared.

During World War I, John Bowman, the captain of a tramp steamer, refuses to allow his wife and daughter Shirley to accompany him on a long voyage because he fears that the ship may be torpedoed. Before his departure, he entrusts his life insurance policy to shipping agent Sam Bullard, who, unknown to John, once courted Mrs. Bowman. Shirley, a clairvoyant, has a vision in which her father's ship is torpedoed, and the next day, Sam reports that the ship has been sunk and John killed.

Upon seeing millionaire Lee Brooks's picture in the paper, Julie Le Fabrier, a romantic young model in Madame Swan's dress shop, immediately falls in love with him. Soon afterwards, Julie is sent to the Grand Tides Hotel to deliver a dress to Madame Ricardo, an attractive young woman whose bills are paid by Lee's lovestruck father, Mason Brooks. Having seen her husband, whom she believed to be in South America, on the grounds, Madame Ricardo deserts the hotel, so Julie dons the gown and masquerades as Mason's mistress.

Angela, a lovely young woman of eighteen, lives with her grandmother in Virginia but knows very little about her mother, Lady Eldone, who after the death of Angela's father, moved to Europe and married an English army captain. When Captain Eldone is reported dead, Lady Eldone returns to the United States determined to marry a wealthy man.

In the college play, Tom and his room-mate, "Bunch," take prominent and successful parts, Tom as the hero and "Bunch" as the heroine, in which he is an excellent female impersonator. The day after the performance, "Bunch" makes an engagement to take a real chorus girl to dinner. Unexpectedly his mother comes to college to visit him and he makes Tom take the girl.

James Brieson, a wealthy stockbroker, ruins Hutch Valiant, who soon after dies of the shock. Valiant's son Steele returns from the Northwest, where he won his fortune, just before his father's death and decides to devote his life to the cause of revenge.

The mysterious "K" takes a humble job and falls in love with his landlady's daughter, Sidney Page. Sidney discourages her boyish admirer, Joe Drummond, and seeks training as a nurse. Infatuated with the head surgeon, Dr. Max Wilson, she accepts his proposal, which infuriates nurse Carlotta, who also loves Max. Carlotta lures Max to a roadhouse, where Joe, mistaking her for Sidney, shoots Max. K appears and, assuming his true identity as the famous Dr. Edwards, saves Max's life by performing his "Edwards operation."

Lois Fox, upon whose shoulder is branded a Chinese idiograph resembling the letters "A. Y.," is rescued from a gang of Chinese ruffians by Brice Ferris. His servant Ming, in attempting to steal from her finger a ring that bears a mysterious green seal, is killed, and soon afterward a stranger named Strang arrives, also in search of the girl. Despite Brice's efforts to protect her, Lois is abducted and taken to the headquarters of Lao Wing, the leader of a secret Chinese society known as the Tong.

The Strings of Steel is a silent Action serial. Episode titles: 1. The Voice on the Wire 2. The First Central 3. Fighting for Love 4. The Power of Might 5. Kings of the Wire 6. Voice of the Continent 7. Telephone Poles 8. War of the Wire 9. When Lightning Strikes 10. Love and Victory.

Rethna works hard to organize her fellow factory employees against the miserly, uncaring owner, Henry Burke. Then, realizing that she needs money to fight Burke, she begins an affair with his unscrupulous son Harry.

After a stirring performance, Cleo Martell, a renowned stage actress, is visited in her dressing room by Gordon Trent, a too ardent admirer. When Cleo's husband enters, a fight ensues, and Trent kills his rival in the struggle. Jack Stanley arrives on the scene to help but is accused of the murder by Cleo and is sent off to prison. The opportunistic Trent marries Jack's rich fiancée Helen Forde, who believes that her former lover is guilty of unfaithfulness. Jealous of the arrangement, Cleo eventually tells Helen the truth about the killing, causing Betty, Helen's daughter, to cry over her mother's unhappiness. Moved by the girl's tears, Cleo joins forces with Helen against Trent, and the two women go West where Jack, escaped from prison, works as a cowboy.

Helen Winthrop has ambition for the stage and when, during his summer sojourn at her home town, she is introduced to De la Marre, a popular star and dramatic favorite, she is elated and asks him to give her a part in one of his plays. He consents and from that moment she becomes restless, and longs to shake the dust of her village home from her feet. Her old sweetheart, John Tobin, is no longer in her class and receives a very cold goodbye when she leaves to shine in the limelight.

The cabaret act of husband-and-wife dancing team Peggy and Joe Blondin is broken up when Joe becomes consumptive and is ordered West to recuperate. Peggy remains in New York to maintain the couple's income but gradually becomes desperate when letters sent her by her husband request more and more money. Joe's letters actually are being intercepted and rewritten by millionaire Harlan Quinn, who has designs on Peggy and wishes to portray Joe's situation as hopeless. After receiving a particularly alarming letter, Peggy consents to sell her honor to Harlan.

A gang of crooks are employed to get possession of valuable papers of international importance, held by the French Ambassador, Vicomte de Jarlais. They are also instructed to get the Ambassador out of the way and make it appear that he has committed suicide. His mysterious disappearance arouses the United States Secret Service officers

Although Kenneth Carmont and Esther Saunders, criminal Bert Saunders' sister, love each other, Esther marries detective Elwood Collins, who agrees to stop pursuing Bert if she accepts his proposal. One night, Kenneth and Esther hide Bert, who has escaped from the police. The same night, Kenneth's father is murdered. The evidence implicates Kenneth, who cannot supply his whereabouts at the time of the crime, as that would give away Bert. Esther cannot clear Kenneth for the same reason, and because it would let her husband know that she was with her former sweetheart.

Finding himself penniless, Lawrence Ashmore, whose late father was ruined on the stock exchange, obtains a position as a reporter. Ashmore is assigned to investigate the reported fatal illness of Jesse Craven, one of Wall Street's financial monarchs.

For Nita Valyez, who is half-Spanish and half-Irish, Carlos represents potential violence and danger, two things to which she is both attracted and repelled. In contrast, she has only a passing interest in Big Jim, the town's honest, good-hearted sheriff. Then, after Carlos kills a faro dealer, he forces Nita to make an escape with him.