Jim Bannon is back as enduring cowboy hero Red Ryder in Eagle-Lion's Roll, Thunder, Roll. As ever, Ryder's cohorts are Little Beaver and the Duchess, here played by "Little Brown Jug" and Marin Sais. This time, Ryder tries to prove that a series of cattle raids and ranch fires were not the handiwork of masked Mexican do-gooder El Conejo.
Gene Autry is back near the saddle, trying to help out a crippled jockey. Gene is certain that the jockey can ride in the Big Race if the lad can regain his self-confidence. Meanwhile, Gene and comical sidekick Sterling Holloway have another problem on their hands: A rogue stallion has "kidnapped" Gene's prize mare. Piloting a plane, Autry seeks out and locates the stallion.
Autry is drawn into the plot when he's given power of attorney in a property settlement involving his old pal and a gang of land swindlers. The pal then goes on an extended vacation, leaving Autry to sort things out.
Overland mail riders Jack Mason and his pal, Porchy, learn that an Indian uprising is imminent because one of the tribe has been murdered by a gang of outlaws. The primary town of the mail route is also being used as a hideout and base of operations for a gang of counterfeiters led by Joe Polini. Jack and an undercover federal agent, Duke Evans, round up the counterfeiters and turn Polini over to the Indian Chief as the killer of the brave.
Gene Autry heads a cattlemen's association and calls on the inexperienced Jim Agnew to negotiate the sale of five hundred heads of cattle. Jim ends up losing the cattle in a crooked poker game, however, and Gene and his sidekick Frog set out to find the cheating gamblers. It soon becomes clear that the leader of the gamblers is none other than Asa Lock, the dastardly father of Gene's romantic interest Stephanie.
A rancher caught in the middle of a bank robbery shoots one of the robbers. However, the dead bandit turns out to be a former ranch hand who was suing him. The rancher is arrested for murder.
After Bob Lansing (Jay Wilsey as Buffalo Bill Jr). is involved in a nightclub scrape, where he meets Montana rancher Madge Holt (Allene Ray)), his father sends him out west with his chauffeur Ben (Ben Corbett). In Montana, they are mistaken for rustlers Dick (Tom London) and Jim (Yakima Canutt), and Bob again meets Madge, who recognizes him but wishes to make things difficult for him.
The parents (Horace B. Carpenter)(Vane Calvert) of Smokey Smith (Bob Steele) are murdered while traveling with a wagon train that is attacked by outlaws. Smokey swears revenge but his only possible chance lies in finding the member of the border-gang who took a ring from his father's finger. The sheriff (Earl Dwire) of a nearby border town makes Smokey a deputy after the latter saves his life when outlaws attack a stagecoach the sheriff is escorting. This enables Smokey to find the hideout of the gang that killed his parents, and he, posing as a wanted man, is able to join the gang. He soon incurs the wrath of gang-member Kent(Warner Richmond), who is jealous over the attention that Bess Bart (Mary Kornman, step-daughter of the gang-leader, "Blaze" Bart (George 'Gabby' Hayes), is showing Smokey.
Tom Cameron, aka the Lone Rider, and his faithful sidekick, Fuzzy Jones, flee across the Rio Grande to avoid assassination by crooked lawman Deputy Hatfield, only to have the Mexican cops accuse Cameron of being the notorious bandit El Puma. At Hatfield's behest, they are also accused of kidnapping the local mayor's son, and now the pair must prove their innocence and find a way to stop Hatfield's lawless ways.
When shifty cattlemen Belknap (Walter Miller) and H.R. Shelby (Gordon Hart) are caught shipping infected animals to Mexico, they frame inspector Gene Autry. Now Autry and his sidekick, Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette), must catch the bad guys in the act and set things straight. June Storey co-stars as rancher Martha Wheeler. Autry sings "I'm Gonna Round Up My Blues," "Moonlight on the Ranch House" and "Big Bull Frog."
Young Joe is paralyzed as he is bucked by a wild horse, a strawberry roan. Angered, his father, Walt, tries to shoot the horse but is stopped by his foreman, Gene Autry. The roan escapes and Autry, told to leave the ranch by Walt, finds and trains the horse, now named Champ, in hopes that by returning it to Joe it will provide him with the will to overcome his disability.
Jimmy Dixon, pursued by a band of Mexicans, changes clothes with a tramp, who takes off on his horse. Four miles later, Jimmy walks onto the Double-O Ranch, from which he had been thrown off four years before by his dad, who had blamed Jimmy for something that his twin brother Duke had done. Duke, home from college, took over the ranch when Mr. Dixon became ill, and has run it into the ground. When Duke goes to the bank to repay a debt to Jimmy, he rides onto Phoenix with all of the ranch money.
Tom Keene, formerly George Duryea and latterly Richard Powers, made his final starring appearance in the Monogram western The Painted Trail. Keene is cast as a former federal agent who is drawn out of retirement to stem the activities of smugglers Boss (Leroy Mason) and Driscoll (Walter Long). Disguising himself as an outlaw, our hero gains the confidence of the two desperadoes, only to be found out at the least appropriate time. Rest assured that Keene saves the day and manages to march ingenue Ann (Eleanore Stewart) to the altar.
Cavanaugh and McCauley are after the ranchers land. When the Government announces the land will be put up for auction, the ranchers pool their money only to have it stolen by Cavanaugh's men. They then plan to sell their cattle but Cavanaugh announces a fake gold strike and the cowhands all leave. But Gene's hobo friend the Judge says he will get the cattle to market and he sends out a signal to his hobo friends.