Anna Sewell's "autobiography" of a horse named Black Beauty is here expanded to include the adventures of the humans who surround the horse.

When the Great War begins, English sportsman Cyril Hammersley is thought to be a slacker because he refuses to join the army for pacifistic reasons. His American fiancée, Doris Mathers, knows that he is not a coward, but she questions his patriotism when Sir John Rizzio intimates that Hammersly may be a German spy.

Monty Banks plays a paramour who starts all sort of silly highjinks with Eva Novak and Carolyne Wright

The Count and Countess Bertrand are prominent in society. The Count is also a lieutenant. The throw a society circus and part of the entertainment is ring master and circus rider Alexander Ivanoff. But in reality Ivanoff is a spy, and with the aid of his wife he steals some documents from the Count which involve the mobilization of troops. When the papers turn up missing Bertrand is court martialed and sent to prison for a 12-year sentence.

Mr. Norton discovers his wife in the arms of his neighbor, Captain Roberts, a married man. His first maddened impulse is to kill his faithless wife, but on his way for the gun his little child runs to his arms to say good-night. The incident unnerves him and his wild determination is destroyed. He decides upon another course. He goes to Mrs. Roberts and tells her that he intends to ruin the Captain's home as her husband had ruined his, and that unless she consents to elope with him at ten o'clock that night he will shoot her husband on sight.