Montana ranch owner Cyrus Bigbee sends his foreman, Gene Autry, and Rawhide Buttram to his Canadian timber land to stop the marriage of his daughter Sandy to Todd Markey, whom he dislikes. Sandy wants to turn the property into a dude ranch, with Carolina Cotton and the Cass County Boys (Fred S. Martin, Jerry Scoggins and Bert Dodson) among the entertainers, and runs up against local timbermen who want it for cutting timber. When a Mountie is murdered, with suspicion pointing to Todd, Gene finds the real culprit and brings peace to the area.
Ma Turner of Red Bluff sends for U.S.Marshal Buck Roberts to investigate a series of wide-spread rustling in the area. Town banker Miller, saloon-owner Duke Mason and the crooked sheriff are in cahoots with rancher John Holt, but they double-cross and kill him. His son Steve witnesses the murder and kills the sheriff. Buck arrives and arrests Steve. Marshal Tim McCall, posing as an outlaw, gains the confidence of the gang and engineers the escape, with Buck's knowledge, of Steve from the jail. Sandy Hopkins, the third Marshal of the trio, poses as a peddler and learns that the gang intends to do away with Buck and rides to the Turner ranch to warn him. Red, a Turner ranch hand but also a member of the gang, overhears Buck telling Ma that Tim is really a U.S. Marshal, and he has Miller and Mason informed. Written by Les Adams
Like 1940's Melody Ranch, the 1941 Gene Autry vehicle Down Mexico Way was designed as a "special", to be promoted separately from Autry's regular B-western series as an A-picture attraction. The story gets under way when a pair of con artists, Gibson (Sidney Blackmer) and Allen (Joe Sawyer), breeze into the town of Sage City claiming to be movie producers. The two scoundrels promise to film a movie in the little burg on the condition that the townsfolk pony up the necessary production fees.
It's cattlemen versus sheepmen and Trigger Gargan appears to be the leader of the gang causing the trouble. But unknown to Ranger Tex Lawrence, the respected town citizen Barrow is the boss and is tipping off the gang as to the Ranger's activities.
Delphine is a sweet innocent young girl, her new best friend pulls her into a world where she falls in love with a local pretty boy. Working her hardest to make him love her drags her into prostitution.