In this Western, Frank Keenan has a dual role -- kind-hearted gambler John Lynch and evil bandit Big Rivers. The only person who realizes there is a resemblance between the two is dance hall girl Nita (Maude George), who was abused by the outlaw and cared for by Lynch.
The story is set in Arizona, where the aptly nicknamed Yates is the proprietor of the local saloon. Unable to find any other work, pretty Mary Adams is forced to scrub floors in Yates' establishment. At first treating her with the same disdain that he extends to the rest of the townsfolk, Yates slowly but surely falls in love with Mary.
Percival Cadwallader Perkins was so bashful that whenever a woman would look at him he would blush like a beet, and this brought the "Happy Family," the cowboys of the Flying U, to calling him "Pink."
A deputy comes upon a young girl who has been fired and cheated out of her wages by her former employer. The deputy helps her get what's due her, and accompanies her to her hometown, where they discover that her stepfather has plans to marry her off to a big-time smuggler.
Lt. Milt Mulford graduates from West Point and is assigned to a cavalry outpost in the West, near an Apache reservation. One day the Apaches, tired of being cheated by a crooked Indian agent, break the reservation and Mulford is sent after them with a patrol. Unfortunately, he cracks under the pressure of his first firefight, and is thrown out of the army. His fiancé, disgusted, ends their engagement. He sets out to prove that he is not a coward and regain his fiancé's love.
Cowboy Ace Cooper, to avoid arrest, becomes a fireman, falls in love with the chief's daughter, Sally Drennan, and wins her in spite of the efforts of a crooked politician to separate them.
Blinky, the bespectacled son of Col. "Raw Meat" Islip, is scorned by his fellow cavalrymen stationed on the Mexican border because his previous military experience was as a Boy Scout.
Believing he has committed murder, Sam Pertune, a simple westerner, enlists in the Navy, then cannot get released when he learns that his "victim" is alive.
Duke Travis returns from the war suffering from shell shock and an inordinate fear of guns. His father, a ranch owner, refuses to accept Duke's disability and considers him a coward.
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.
Bert Lyons returns to the Grainger spread from the "outside world" to find his former employer dead and the ranch in the possession of Calvert, a narcotics smuggler, and Blackie Lopez, a rustler who has his eyes on Molly Grainger, Lyons' sweetheart.
Returning from service in the A. E. F., Dale Garland is given a rousing reception by his townsmen. County political boss Nebo Slayter persuades the community to nominate Dale for sheriff--thinking he can be easily manipulated--against John Millard, the incumbent, who refuses political compromises. Dale easily wins and pledges to give the citizens an honest deal. Millard's daughter, Alice, who is Dale's childhood sweetheart, learns of Slayter's dishonest schemes and sees his men murder a moonshiner for whom they had been furnishing protection.
The Bearcat, alias The Singin' Kid, crosses the Rio Grande into Three Pines, singing bloodthirsty verses, but in spite of these, he makes friends with Sheriff Bill Garfield and likewise with Alys May, daughter of cattle rancher John P. May, by saving her from a runaway. As a reward, he gets a job on the ranch and falls in love with Alys, though warned she is engaged to Aitken, her brother's college chum.
Gilead is a lumber town that is dominated by two branches of the Kidder family: the puritanical, ultra-conservative side led by Enoch and his son John, and the hedonistic branch led by Enoch's brother Aaron. Aaron plans to sway John to come over to his side by using a young girl who has lost her memory to lure him over, but when he kidnaps her John sets out to free her. Complications ensue.
Partners "Smilin' Bob" Corey and Jim O'Neil are forest rangers sent to peacefully "penetrate" Paradise Valley, which is scheduled to become part of a national park. Although the townspeople are sullen about their presence, they manage to befriend Marie Roselli, an Italian girl whose brother Wolf owns a cattle ranch and from they obtain supplies. Before they; know it, Bob and Jim get caught up in a kidnapping, an illegal logging ring, and a murder.
Molly Killbride, daughter of the inspector in the Royal Mounties, is in love with trooper Jimmy Hearn, but her father prefers that she marry Harry Morgan, a wealthy young civilian. Morgan, however, is allied with a gang of outlaws headed by Hanley, and when Morgan taunts Jimmy into a fistfight the gang causes him to be railroaded to prison for felonious assault.