Local "patriot's league" leader secretly kills off ranchers, buys up their estates, which are undermined with tin ore; Marshal and singing cowpoke team up to find villain and motive.
Lightning Bill Carson and sidekick Magpie are after Burrows, the man that killed a friend of theirs. Burrows is after the Arden ranch and his gang are rustling their cattle. Bill is robbing Burrows while posing as the mysterious Phantom and it's not long before the two collide.
When Jim and Scrubby arrive to see Scrubby's sister, they find her murdered and suspect it was her no good husband Jake. But Jake and his men have just robbed the stage and two dectectives arrive looking for them. Finding Jim and Scrubby instead, they assume them to be the outlaws and arrest them.
A band of renegades attacks and loots a mission, stealing some priceless treasures. Local citizens blame an outlaw known as "The Hawk," who is also called "The Phantom of Santa Fe."
The Royal Mounties are called in when one of the armored cars owned by Maxwell, containing a gold shipment, disappears with driver George Hill suspected of trying to get away with the gold. Actually, Maxwell and two henchmen had poured acid on the brake lines, causing the car to crash. Genevieve, daughter of the Mountie chief, suspects Maxwell and Thomas Hatch, president of the bank shipping the gold, but she quickly becomes more trouble than help to Sergeant Renfrew in charge of the investigation. Renfrew and Constable Kelly drive the next shipment but Maxwell plans to make them crash the same way as Hill did. Renfrew steers the vehicle into a hillside and this gives him an idea of what happened to the other car.
Tex and Shorty ride into Cinco Valley, a gold rich area terrorized by marauders ostensibly lead by one Pablo. Tex, however, recognizes Blackie, whose boss is Bannister, an American. Suspecting that Bannister and his henchmen are trying to drive the settlers off their potentially valuable land by posing as Mexican banditos, Tex convinces Pablo to help him set a trap for the marauders.
Sheriff Tom Tracy is summoned to the sheep camp where he finds Old Man Jenkins fatally wounded and, with his dying breath, accuses Ned Hampton, brother of the girl to whom Tom is engaged, of having shot him in the back.
The Shadow and his outlaw gang have control of Durango Valley. Keene Cordner arrives, and with the help of Tanner becomes a second Shadow in his attempt to round up the gang.
Two prisoners, Steve Brandt and Nick Montana, chained to each other, escape by jumping from the train that brought them to the penitentiary. Persued, they hide in the carriage with Jane Langton. Arriving at her ranch, they discover that she is fighting against a Pete Sutton, who wants to take her pasture. Not wanting to confront, Sutton offers the two escapees help by assisting them move to Mexico.
Reed breaks up the first attempted gold robbery. When the outlaws next attempt is successful, Reed is jailed as the suspect. Escaping from jail, he knows who to look for.
When the bank is robbed, Gene and the boys are singing nearby and the Chief arrests them as gang members but lets them go thinking they will lead them to the others.
Hall is after Dennison's land and hires the Shooting Kid to finish him off. The Marshal sends Tex to help Dennison, but the Kid has been helped by Tex in the past and changes sides.
The Rancho Grande, a Texas border ranch, cut off from the law by a gang of outlaws led by ranch foreman Bart Lane, who is holding the elderly owner of the ranch, Sarah Burton, a prisoner. Tex Lowery, an undercover Texas Ranger, rescues Martha Williams, a nurse sent for by the ailing Sarah, from a stagecoach holdup by Lane's henchmen. He later convinces Laner that he is a wanted outlaw named Ed Carter, and gains entry to Rancho Grande. But the real Ed Carter shows up.
When Jon returns on his first trip home from college, he inadvertently triggers events that inspire him to embark on an auspicious journey through the night to return a lost locket.
Prison escapee Utah Evans kills Sheriff McClay. Joe Norton was McClay's predecessor and sent Utah to prison. Ma McClay having taken over as Sheriff for her husband, now gets Joe to return. Joe sets out to get Utah and Utah, learning Joe is after him, hopes to get revenge for being sent to prison.