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This seafaring melodrama was based on the Harkins and Barber stage play by the same name. His ship capsized in a storm, Captain John Ferguson, his wife, Mary (Anna Q. Nilsson), and their little boy are picked up by a pirate ship manned by the brutal Butch Anderson (Jack Richardson). Anderson thrashes Ferguson, blinding him, and then sets him and his son adrift, keeping Mary on board. Mary commits suicide rather than submit to Anderson. Ferguson's son, Colin (John Harron), grows up and joins the coast fire patrol. He is in love with Molly Thatcher (Madge Bellamy), but Molly's scheming sister, Emma (Helen Jerome Eddy), wants him for herself. Emma seduces Colin just as a fire at sea is breaking out, and because he misses the call, he is disgraced. One of the men rescued is Anderson, and he goes after Molly. Captain Ferguson (played as an old man by Spottiswood Aitken) is able to mete out punishment to his old adversary, and when Emma is shot, Colin and Molly are able to reunite.