A Mexican bandit is about to be executed in the United States, so his brother takes over a train and holds the passengers as hostages unless his brother is released. Now both the Americans and Mexicans are baffled as to what to do. One of the passengers — who wrote the letter for their captor — has a suggestion: call mercenaries Hank Brackett and Johnny Reech. They do, and as expected they do come up with a plan, but the president of the railroad is not sure if it will work.
Eddie and his sidekicks have been called in to help get a new telegraph line through. Dawson and his men along with his stooge Judge are out to stop them. When Eddie and the boys catch three of Dawson's men destroying telegraph equipment, the Judge releases them and this leads to the showdown between the two sides.
Railroad president, John Houston, along with his daughter Marjorie and his fiancee, Elinor Craig, are aboard the express train when it is held up by a gang of outlaws. Outlaw Dan Tracy, is attracted to Marjorie, who, filled with dreams of romance, returns his interest. They exchange rings and later meet secretly in the city. When Houston learns that his daughter's new suitor is an outlaw, he hires a detective to investigate. The investigation indicates that Tracy is Houston's son by a former marriage, and Houston, mortified, allows the outlaw to escape. Tracy then persuades Marjorie to elope with him and takes her to his shack in the hills where she is rudely awakened to the realities of outlaw life. Houston arrives to save his daughter, and after Tracy is killed by Rosanne, the woman he betrayed, it is revealed that Tracy was not his son but an offspring of his former wife and an outlaw. A lost film.
A man has died leaving a fortune somewhere on his ranch. Brandon and his cohorts think a map is hidden in a picture frame. But when they bid on the picture at the auction, newcomer Jerry Lane outbids them. He also buys the ranch so they place their housekeeper there to get the picture. And then to keep Jerry out of the way, they frame him for murder.
In the Canadian mountains, a trapper goes on the run accused of a crime and is pursued by a rugged and determined lawman of the Royal North-West Mounted Police.
For Nita Valyez, who is half-Spanish and half-Irish, Carlos represents potential violence and danger, two things to which she is both attracted and repelled. In contrast, she has only a passing interest in Big Jim, the town's honest, good-hearted sheriff. Then, after Carlos kills a faro dealer, he forces Nita to make an escape with him.
Jennie Lee and her father are on their way to Golden California, from a little Kansas farm, traveling in a prairie schooner. At the last settlement visited by the two, the old man, who has a weakness for drink, purchases several bottles of whiskey, which he begins drinking when they have made camp for the night. A lone cowboy calls upon them and finds the old man in a jovial mood and cautions him to beware of the hostile tribe of Indians, through whose country they are now traveling.
Orphan Hilda Swanson's prayers are answered when a Swedish-American colonization company agrees to send her to America. Aboard the steamer, she meets Olaf, a young Swede, and Donna, an enemy courier who is posing as a passenger. Learning that the secret service is on her trail, Donna sews secret documents into the hem of Hilda's skirt. She then sends a wire to her comrade Felix Martinez, notifying him to intercept the Swedish girl.
Silas Kendall, a prospector, and his daughter Nell, so the story goes, are prospecting in the mountains, a few miles above Canyon City, a little western town, and the basis of supplies for the hundreds of more or less successful gold prospectors. Kendall has built him a cabin and he and his daughter, a robust little woman, have managed to eke out a living, always hopeful some day of making the "big strike."
Nugget Clark has been having his stagecoaches wrecked and Marshal Rocky Lane arrives to investigate. The foreman of a nearby mine is stealing part of the mecury output and selling it in Mexico. Nugget's house has a direct pipeline from the mine and they are trying to drive him into bankruptcy to obtain his ranch. Rocky is quickly aware that the Foremen is behind Nugget's holdups but they are also onto Rocky when he accidently drops his badge during a fight.
"Whity" is the mulatto butler of the dysfunctional Nicholson family in the American Southwest in 1878. The father, Ben Nicholson, has an attractive young wife, Katherine, and two sons by a previous marriage: the homosexual Frank and the feeble-minded Davy. Whity tries to carry out all their orders, however demeaning, until various family members ask him to kill some of the others.
After a stagecoach holdup, Frank Slayton's notorious gang leave Ben Warren for dead and head off with his fiancée. Warren follows, and although none of the townspeople he comes across are prepared to help, he recruits two others who have sworn revenge on the ruthless Slayton.