The inaptly named Peace City is held in a grip of fear by the corrupt Sheriff Sellers. The benevolent, black-hatted 'Stranger,' who unexpectedly arrives in town, is in actuality an undercover Texas Ranger determined to restore law and order.
Cowpoke Sandy Adams overhears a plot to frame rancher Duncan McKenna for a rash of cattle rustlings and methodically turns the members of the gang against each other.
Don Diego Vega pretends to be an indolent fop as a cover for his true identity, the masked avenger Zorro. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
The hero is affected in his daily life by petty superstitious fears, which gives the heroine an idea he is cowardly. She returns his ring, but later events prove his real mettle and she is glad when a reconciliation comes.
Ranchmen try to play a joke on one of their associates by signing his name to a letter addressed to Sarah Smith, who has advertised in a matrimonial journal. A mix-up occurs on the day of the arrival of the lady when a younger woman, sent to buy stock, also appears on the scene and is mistaken for the prospective bride.
When law and order fade into distant memory in Angel City, the townspeople yearn for the era of the Iron Riders, a band of men who took justice into their own hands and brought order out of chaos. The organizer of the group was John Lannigan, whose son Larry decides to take up the mantle of the Riders once again.
Dick Rainboldt (Carey) signs up to work at a gold mine without realizing that he's being hired as a strikebreaker. He takes the job primarily because of a pretty girl who lives in the town. The superintendent and manager of the mine convince Rainboldt to blow up the mine and make it appear like the strikers did it. But Rainboldt turns the tables on the plotters and reveals their scheme. The mine owner rewards him with a big assignment and the girl promises to marry him.
The hero befriends a young school teacher, who adopts a child at his suggestion. The real father of the child, who neglected its mother and allowed her to die, tries to make the teacher believe the hero is its father, which brings about an interesting complication.
Civil engineer Warren Neale rescues a badly wounded Allie Lee after her family is killed in an Indian massacre. Falling in love after nursing her back to health, Warren must yet again save Allie when she is kidnapped by a dangerous bandit.
Andy Green, a colorful cowboy, finds work at the Flying U cattle ranch, owned by Chip. Chip's foreman Dunk, who is Elsie Gray's guardian, attempts to force her to sign papers releasing him, but she refuses because he has stolen some of her money. Chip fires Dunk, who buys an adjoining sheep ranch, cutting off Chip's water supply and endangering his cattle.
Hobo poet Sundown Slim meets his old friend Billy Corliss in a Western saloon. Billy, in poor health as a result of injuries sustained in a train wreck, now owns the Concho cattle ranch with his brother Jack who runs the ranch. Sundown obtains a job at the Concho and becomes embroiled in the Corliss' battle with their sheeprancher neighbors, the Fernandos. When Loring, one of Jack's employees, attacks Fernando's daughter Anita, Jack fires him but Fernando, not satisfied, vows revenge on Jack, then shoots Billy by mistake.
William Farnum is Drag Harlan, a tough cowboy vigilante. After learning about a gold mine from a dying man, he seeks his daughter (Jackie Saunders) as well as the gold. He falls in love with her, but the same gang that shot the old man is after the gold.