When Red Hawk Dugan and his men attack a small wagon train, Colonel Merriwell is killed and the young girl Isobel taken and raised thinking Dugan is her father. Fifteen years later the Colonel's son Jack arrives looking for Dugan whom he learned killed his father. As he hunts for Dugan he meets and falls in love with Isobel only to then learn Dugan is her father.
"Flash" Lanning returns to Bozzam City from the East to put an end to cattle rustling. Gloria Hallowell, who has known him by reputation, falls in love with Lanning but believes that he loves Ellen Bosworth, an eastern "lady." Campan, the leader of the rustlers, hoping to lure Lanning into a trap, kidnaps both girls. Lanning rescues the girls, punishes Campan, and indicates to Gloria that she is the girl for him.
Veteran western performers Harry Carey and Marguerite Clayton appeared in three films together from 1923-1924: Desert Driven, Tiger Thompson and, perhaps their best, Canyon of the Fools.
Texas Ranger Chuck Williams is the bashful sweetheart of the daughter, Ellen, of the captain of his Texas Rangers troop. He is working with the Mexican Rurales in an effort to stop a gang of gun runners. The gang-leader shows up, posing as an artist, and Ellen takes him in as a boarder to make Chuck jealous. But Chuck is wise to the boarder, who kidnaps Ellen and heads for the mountain hideout of his gang.
Cowboy Bill sells his prize dogs to pay Janet's way back to New York and, in love with the girl, follows her to Manhattan where he obtains a job as a construction worker.
Guiding two covered wagons along a desert trail, Duke Steele meets and befriends Sam Le Saint, a mysterious hermit who is searching for a former partner who destroyed his home and ran away with his wife and infant daughter eighteen years earlier. Later, the two men ride into a mining camp controlled by Silver Sleed, who runs a gambling place. Duke is smitten by beautiful young Nola "Luck" Sleed, and learns that she is the gambler's daughter. Silver Sleed also happens to be the man that Sam Le Saint is searching for. Sam, who is dying, kills Sleed, and Duke learns that Luck is Sam's long-lost daughter.
Andy Walker, bullied and taunted with being a coward, leaves town on a freight. The brakeman shoots two ruffians, but Andy is hailed as the hero and made a deputy sheriff.
Three Who Paid is a 1923 American silent Western melodrama film directed by Colin Campbell, and starring Dustin Farnum, with Bessie Love and Frank Campeau. The film was based on the 1922 short story by George Owen Baxter,
When Bob Stratton returns from war in France, he soon discovers his ranch in the hands of a pretty girl, Mary Thorne, who explains that upon her father's death she became the sole owner. Thorne had been the executor of Stratton's will, and thinking that Bob had been killed, he had appropriated the place for himself.
Rancher Bill Holt has a small homestead and insists on holding onto his land, much to the chagrin of crotchety old Judd Acker, a neighboring rancher who would like to see him vacate.
Jack Meadows and sidekick Toby are looking for whiskey smugglers along the Canadian border. They find a badly wounded Seriff who earlier caught one of them and a nearby hoofprint of a horse with a broken shoe. Setting up a blacksmith shop, they soon find the owner of that horse and replace the shoe with another that will let them trace him.
Small town sheriff "Silent" Davidson tries to protect aging sheep rancher Scott Martin and his daughter, Jean, from the predations of local cattlemen. Head cattleman Pete Kane and banker Jeff Sedley ambush the old man and frame the sheriff for his murder, but Scott is only badly wounded. Recovering consciousness, he tells Jean who the real culprits are. However, Kane seizes and imprisons her. Ultimately, Silent breaks out of jail, finds and frees Jean from her bonds, proves his innocence, and brings Kane and Sedley to justice. Naturally, he wins Jean's heart.
Paul is practicing the art of being a cowboy. He consults a book before firing his gun, climbing onto a saddle on top of a chair and then falling off and dressing his wounds. He then gets back on his 'saddle' and fires his gun again, this time in the direction of another man who has just entered the room. Paul leaves abruptly and rides into town on a horse, and straight through a crowded saloon. A town marshal sees this as act act of bravery and rewards Paul with a sheriff's badge immediately. A fearful rival makes his mark when he lights his cigarette by tossing it into the air and shooting at it to ignite it!
Frank Magee teams up with Sandy, his father's ex-partner, and falls in love with June Rance, daughter of his father's murderer. Sánchez and Black Pete learn from Sandy the whereabouts of his mine, kill Rance, and attempt to file a claim on the mine. When Frank tries to overtake them, he is too late but finds that June has filed ahead of the Mexicans.