When the Government incorporates Bill Hayden's ranch into a Federal game preserve, Jack McCabe, a forest ranger, is sent to serve an eviction notice on Hayden and his daughter, Shasta. Hayden resists the order, and Jack falls in love with Shasta.
Jim Wesley returns from college with a silk shirt and eastern ways, earning the contempt of the cowpunchers on his father's ranch. With a little hard riding and fancy roping, however, Jim proves himself to be a regular guy. Jim's father is involved in a dispute over water rights with Adam Grayson, a neighboring rancher, and the two men decide to settle the disagreement by a marriage between Jim and Grayson's daughter, Marguerite. The young people refuse, but when Marguerite is attacked by a rejected suitor, Jim comes quickly to her rescue.
A drifter befriends wounded outlaw Lafe Wells. Having promised to deliver a sack of gold to the man's family, Wales promptly falls for the daughter of the house.
Bob Erskine, the son of a wealthy New York banker, falls in love with Ella Parkhurst, the daughter of an Oregon rancher. Bob goes to work as a fieldhand for the elder Parkhurst and discovers that the Oregon crops may fail because eastern bankers, led by Bob's father, refuse to advance the farmers credit. Bob intercedes with his father, who promises to help the ranchers if Bob wins the steeplechase in the Pendleton rodeo.
Riding into a wild Western town Fred Saunders comes to the aid of the minister in recovering money stolen from the collection plate, winning the love of June, the minister's daughter in the process. Later Fred prevents the orphan boy Buddy from being trampled by a runaway horse, informally adopting him. When Carney and his gang kidnap the boy Fred rescues him uncovering the secret that Buddy is June's long-lost brother. Fred and June are married by her father.
A band of marauders are burning the property of ranchers in Slocum Valley. Dane Gordon, Percival Wade's silent partner, poses as an ex-convict, joins the gang, and falls in love with Goldie Fleming, stenographer to Bat Jackson, the brains of the gang. He learns that the raids are conducted for the purpose of depreciating the properties so that they can be purchased for a song. The gang learns Dane's real identity and plots to blow him up.
Dennis Terhune, ranch foreman for John Morgan, an eastern capitalist, discovers that there is oil on Morgan's ranch shortly after Morgan has deeded the ranch to Daley, western manager for the Morgan properties. Dennis rides after Daley and retrieves the deed, saving Morgan's ranch and securing for himself the love of the financier's daughter, Eunice.
Rowdy Dyer, the weak but tough-acting son of wealthy rancher Dynamite Dyer, greets the stage in which his sister Clare is arriving by disguising himself as a bandit. He fires a shot that causes the horses to bolt. Cowpuncher Arizona Allen stops the horses but is shot at by passenger Dale Collins, the bank manager. Dynamite hires Arizona, and Clare asks him to look after Rowdy. Arizona saves Rowdy from being fleeced by gambler Buck Zaney, thus incurring Zaney's enmity.
Lee Purdy, the owner of a ranch on "Enchanted Hill," is subjected to repeated attacks by unknown assailants. He meets Gail Ormsby, the owner of the neighboring Box K Ranch, and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Ira Todd, Gail's crooked foreman, fills her head with lies about Lee, whom she unjustly comes to hate. In a pitched battle between the men from Enchanted Hill and those from the Box K, Todd's men are routed. Lee then learns that Todd (in league with a banker who knows that there is gold on Lee's land) has attempted to frighten him off by means of the repeated attacks. The law steps in, and Lee and Gail renew their courtship. A lost film.
Arizona cowboy Coot Cadigan travels to San Francisco and runs into Stuffy McGee, a small-time crook who stages phony "fights" to amuse the tourists. During one of those frights a man is killed and Coot gets blamed for it. Stuffy hides him out, but when he gets arrested Coot hightails it back to Arizona. with Stuffy's three children. To earn some money, he enters the Arizona Sweepstakes, a horse race with a large purse and one on which Col. Savery--the father of the girl Coot loves--depends on to save his ranch.
Juan de Dios O'Rourke, an American Secret Service, of Spanish-Irish descent, leads the cattle ranchers and border patrol in a fight to suppress a gang of cattle rustlers, who have been driving large herds north-to-south from Texas into Mexico, and smuggling illegal, no-passport Chinese aliens south-to-north from Mexico into Texas, operating from a rambling mansion on the Texas side of the border, aided by his sweetheart, a rancher's daughter, Phoebe Joyce.