A newspaper reporter In China, while in an opium den, rescues a white man. Being hard up for big story material he gets him to pose as a millionaire. He soon gets on the trail of a story of a white merchant who, to save himself from financial difficulties, seeks to marry his ward to a rich Chinaman. He goes to the Chinaman's house, rescues the girl and takes her aboard a ship which belongs to the same Chinese mandarin and which has a cargo of coolies to be smuggled into Canada. One of the mandarin's servants gets aboard and finally persuades the coolies to mutiny. A terrific fight occurs and the coolies are finally subdued through the help obtained from a warship that happens to be passing. Arriving in America, the girl is followed by the mandarin. As he is about to get her in his control again, he receives word from China to return immediately, and rather than do so, commits suicide.