Mexican-bandit Montero and his deaf-mute sidekick Coloso are being pursued through the sand-dunes of southern Arizona by lawman Bob-Cat Manners and his posse. Montero has intentions of robbing the bank owned by skinflint Lucius Perkins, but is sidetracked by the attractions of singing-teacher Helen Wardell. He learns that Perkins has marital designs on Helen and holds the mortgage on her ranch. But Helen is in love with Bill Howard. Perkins offers Montero money to kill his rival.
Tod Walker takes Rex Carson's map to a gold mine and leaves him in the desert. Carson recuperates at Jean Walker's ranch and she takes a liking to him. But when her uncle Tod arrives, he claims Carson tried to jump his claim. She sides with her uncle and Carson, banished from the Walker ranch, sets out to get his claim back.
Colonel Lee, a homesteader, is the object of terrorists who want to drive him off the range so that his horses cannot be entered in the county races, and he refuses an offer of Martin Brierson to buy him out. Pete, Brierson's brother, in hiding because of his criminal record, burns the colonel's barn and injures his horses. Convinced of Brierson's responsibility for the terror tactics, "Lucky" Larkin plans to ride Tarzan, the colonel's pet colt. Brierson does his best to disqualify the horse, but Larkin tricks him and wins the race. Larkin captures Pete and forces him to confess. The Brierson brothers are brought to justice, and Larkin wins Emmy Lou, a homesteader's daughter.
Bud Rand, a cowboy who is charged with the care of Little Billy Rand, accepts an offer to appear with Copeland's Wild West Show to ride a horse called "Mankiller." Dude, Copeland's righthand man, resents Bud's attentions to Mary, one of the performers, and when they fight it out, Bud is the victor. In revenge Dude loosens the cinch on the horse.....
After shooting a man in self-defense, Buck Duane finds himself accused of many crimes, none of which he committed. In order to prove his innocence, he joins the Texas Rangers, and also hopes to win the approval and hand of Mary Aldridge, a girl from the East. He is assigned to round up a gang of cattle rustlers who are, unknown by Mary. led by her father.
Three bank robbers on the run happen across a woman about to give birth in an abandoned covered wagon. Before she dies, she names the three bandits as her newborn son's godfathers. Remade as Three Godfathers (1936) and 3 Godfathers (1949).
Dick Carlysle returns home to find that his mother has married Brute Kettle who is really out to get the Carlysle ranch. First Kettle gets Bennett to forge a letter saying Dick relinquishes his inheritance in the ranch and then he tries to get Dick's mother to relinquish hers.
College boy Clarence Butts has been sent west by the Doctor to join McKenzie's circus. There he finds Calamity Jane running roughshod over everyone. So the dude decides to tame her.
Drifters Tom Williams and Joe Morgan have a chance meeting with the sheriff's daughter and learn that her brother Jim is being held prisoner in Line Hollow by Wolf, who aspires to be the next sheriff. They aid the sheriff in finding the outlaw gang and rescuing Jim. Tom decides to stop drifting and stay near the sheriff's daughter.
Trying to trick Ma (Lydia Knott) and Mary Winters (Allene Ray) into selling their rundown ranch, which will be in the path of a future railroad, Underwood (Charles K.French) hires Keno Creager (Albert Smith) to impersonate Jimmy Winters, not seen by his mother and sister for many years.
Fox's immediate follow-up to its successful early-talkie western In Old Arizona was 1929's Romance of the Rio Grande. The story focuses on the Alvarez family of Mexico, specifically fabulously wealthy Don Fernando. Intending to bequeath his vast fortune and estate to his long-estranged grandson Pancho, Don Fernando must contend with his ne'er-do-well nephew Juan.