Ex-Pony Express rider Autry ties to protect his US mail franchise as the Pony Express gives way to stage coach mail and the telegraph. Gene's last film appearance as a singing cowboy.
When he swaps horses with the Tombstone Kid — a wrongly accused man on the run from the law — singing cowboy Tex Randall gets arrested by the local sheriff in a case of mistaken identity.
While Sam Houston in in the nation's capital trying to get Texas into the Union, his aide is trying to impose a self-serving tax on the use of the Santa Fe trail. The lady owner of a wagon train is using the trail, and a Texas Ranger comes to her assistance.
Manzanita Springs ia a combination small airline and spa and Vance Brados wants it. He pays their mechanic to have the planes run out of fuel so his men can rob the gold shipments and kill the pilots. After Sheriff Roy Rogers catches the mechanic, Roy plans one more gold shipment to get proof and this time his men will be ready. But it looks like Roy's plan will fail when Brados suspects a trap and call off the raid.
The bad guys dynamite a fish hatchery. They're trying to put the hatchery out of business so they can get possession of oil underneath the lake. Roy is a game warden investigating the dynamiting.
Ken and Happy, looking for their friend Cherokee, run into an outlaw gang led by Ritter who have been terrorizing the ranchers. Ken figures that one of the prominent citizens is the real boss and sets a trap to find him.
When Moreland's henchman attack Bob Horner the Range Busters break it up. Horner dies but they get the baby Moreland was after. He must have it to become it's guardian and take control of the Horner ranch. When the henchmen catch up with Alibi, they take the baby cradle not realizing Alibi has substituted his dummy Elmer. Crash having evidence Moreland is the one they want, now has a plan to expose him.
Storm is out to wreck Ace's stage line. When Tex arrives to help Ace, Storm brings in hired killer Mule Bates. But Tex and Bates know each other and the two devise a plan to fool Storm.
Roy Rogers takes on crooked wartime profiteers in the musical western Ridin' Down the Canyon. Posing as solid citizens, the crooks spend their evening hours stealing horses from local ranchers, then selling the steeds to the government at exorbitant prices. The head of the bad guys runs a dude ranch where Rogers and his pals (The Sons of the Pioneers) are employed.
In an effort to get Jim Martin to sell his ranch, the Halsey brothers have kidnapped his son Tom. When Bob Burke goes after him alone, he gets help from the gang known as the Riders of the Sage.
The famous western fiction writer Bob Morris arrives at the Henderson ranch. He quickly realizes the hanging, runaway horses, and the shootout are fakes for his benefit. But when a real robbery takes place he thinks it's another fake.
James Craig is torn between his criminal career as the masked bandit named the "El Paso Kid," and the life of a law-abiding citizen with his long-suffering wife Zoe. He repeatedly tells Zoe, "just one more time," but he is unable to stop which angers her greatly. However, he does have brief moments of heroics such as when he helps the Widow Weeks save her farm.