A Wrestler and his ex-Wife (Noah Young and Fay Holderness) try to con a recently-discharged Sailor (Clyde Cook) out of 4 years' pay. When they learn that he lost the money in a 'shell game', they put him to work in the hazardous job of a High Steel Worker, and insure him against accident, then try to see that he has one.
A cook for bridge constructors is told to collect food for dinner-Ritz style trout, Palmer house rabbit and a 15cm frosted cake. He sets off into the wide open spaces to collect the food, coming into contact with a mad hermit, who hates anybody seeing his daughter, before returning to cook dinner.
Mary Rutledge arrives from the east, finds her fiance dead, and goes to work at the roulette wheel of Louis Charnalis' Bella Donna, a rowdy gambling house in San Francisco in the 1850s. She falls in love with miner Carmichael and takes his gold dust at the wheel. As she goes after him, Louis goes after her with intent to harm Carmichael.