Bill Austin [George Brent] loses a leg when the US Navy airship Macon is damaged in a violent storm and sinks into the water, and with that harrowing moment his naval career comes to an end. He heads into civilian life in San Francisco, hoping to find steady work, but the city proves tight for veterans with a new disability. His first attempt is at a lumber company run by Lloyd Skinner [John Eldredge], where the staff is brusque and the doors close quickly on him, and the polite response from Matt Peasely [Willard Robertson] only buys him a little time without promising a job. Undeterred, he tracks down Cappy Ricks [Charles Winninger], the retired founder of the very businesses that loom large in his world, and crosses paths with Margaret Ricks [Anita Louise], Cappy’s daughter, in the reception area.
From the moment they meet, Bill and Margaret feel an instant connection, but a surprising twist unfolds: Margaret is not just another job seeker or a passing acquaintance, but the fiercely loyal daughter of the man who can make or break his chances. When Margaret speaks to her father, she pleads for Bill to be given a real shot. Cappy, who has grown tired of the way Skinner and Peasely run the companies he built, senses in Bill something different and decides to test him with a challenge that no one else has managed to master.
The challenge is audacious: sell half a million feet of unwanted skunk spruce that Cappy had acquired years earlier as a favor. Bill accepts the task with nothing to lose and everything to prove. His drive, sales acumen, and willingness to push beyond ordinary limits push him beyond conventional routes as he travels across the western United States. The mission becomes a proving ground, and his success quickly snowballs into bigger orders for the company, prompting Cappy to dispatch him to Seattle to secure the remaining stock from a tough, hard‑negotiating rival.
Alongside the professional fireworks, a personal current intensifies. Bill and Margaret fall in love during these trials, and the young man uses his growing commission to purchase an engagement ring. Yet Cappy, a wary guardian of his legacy, resists the idea of losing his daughter’s companionship to someone who has just earned a single chance at a lifetime. The two men who once seemed rivals in the business world now clash over a more intimate test known as the blue vase—a legendary assignment that has stumped every suitor before Bill. Cappy phones him with a phony tale of needing a vase bought at the last minute and delivered to the railway station by eight o’clock; the task is stacked with invisible roadblocks and delays designed to crush any hopeful.
Bill overcomes every obstacle with a combination of grit, imagination, and a little luck: he pawns Margaret’s ring to cover the $1,000 price tag, negotiates an extra push from a Navy friend who is on his honeymoon, and somehow gets ahead of a departing train to deliver the vase in time. The payoff is immediate and tangible: Cappy is deeply impressed and offers Bill a promotion to manage the Shanghai office, a plum role that signals a major turn in his career and in his relationship with Margaret.
Even as the romance advances, the obstacle course continues. Bill wants to marry Margaret right away so she can travel with him, but Cappy schemes to block the union by commandeering all the ship staterooms. The couple’s determination outpaces every objection, and they marry and manage to slip aboard the ship anyway. This bold move coincides with a fleetwide disruption at Cappy’s companies: a strike threatens the business, and the workers insist on negotiating only through Bill. Cappy sends a radiogram with the urgent news, and when the ship’s captain refuses to obey a last‑minute reversal, Bill makes a drastic decision to jump overboard. Margaret follows, and the moment is captured as a desperate bid to salvage both the strike and their future.
In a final turn, Cappy locates the couple in their lifeboat as they row toward safety, and Bill negotiates an end to the standoff with the striking crew. The decision is made to keep Skinner out of Shanghai and to let Bill take the helm elsewhere, a strategic move that allows the romance to flourish. The story closes with the couple settling into life at Cappy’s grand mansion, where the professional stakes have been met with personal triumph and a shared commitment to build a life together.
