A crusading young reporter planning a series of articles about a corrupt politician is framed for a crime and sentenced to serve five years at a prison farm.

After a roustabout sailor avoids being shanghaied in 1850s San Francisco, his audacity helps him rise to a position of power in the vice industry of the infamous Barbary Coast.

The hunter becomes the hunted, an officer of the Royal Mounted, fleeing, fighting for his life. Guided to a secret valley in the frozen North by a hot-blooded French-Canadian beauty,…