A pro at the shell game, Jim Blake practices his skills at country fairs, circuses and carnivals until he becomes "J. Hatfield Blake," the promoter of phony stock and land deals which provide his beloved daughter Margaret with luxuries. Margaret falls in love with Dick Wilbur but Dick leaves her because Blake swindles his father out of $100,000 and Margaret sides with Blake. When Margaret meets a poor widow with starving babies to whom Blake sold some worthless desert land, she leaves him, saying she will not return until he rectifies his wrong-doings. She marries Dick, while Blake, shaken by her words, repays everyone who suffered from his dishonesty after he legitimately strikes oil. Alone on Christmas Eve, Blake invites some barroom characters to his mansion for a drunken dinner, after which, at his urging, they take his silverware and paintings. Blake continues to drink and when Margaret and Dick arrive to surprise him, they find him dead.