Writing
Gale, a store owner, lives in an Alaskan village with his grown ward, Necia, whom he had rescued years before from her murderer father, Captain Bennett. Now Bennett, disguised as Ben Stark, has arrived in the village seeking vengeance and his daughter.
David Darby and his younger brother Ross are both members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Ross is accused of murdering Slip Martin, but David doesn't believe his brother committed the murder and, not wanting to see him executed, takes the blame himself.
When the outlaw El Toro saves Hoppy's life, Hoppy agrees to find his missing grandson.
"Side Show" Saunders gains the respect of shopowner Holly Farrell and the townsfolk when he gives up entertaining with his trick horse and dog and goes to work in the general store.
Trouble in Colorado is tying up Union troops needed back east during the Civil War and Lieut. Burke is sent to investigate. Macklin and his gang are causing the problems and Capt. Mason joins them. When Burke catches up with them he also finds Mason, his brother.
The local school is causing Hoppy problems. First Bar 20 cattle are stolen when Hoppy investigates a problem there. Then the new teacher arrives and disrupts the routine of the Bar 20 hands. Later with the Bar 20 hands at graduation, the rustlers are poised to strike again. But there is dissension among them and this will lead to the break that Hoppy needs.
Though he was protecting her when he accidentally killed a man, Mabel Kane (Thelma Todd) refuses to testify on behalf of her dance partner Jerry Davis (George Murphy), and he's sent to jail. In a riot, a hostile convict (Jack La Rue) forces Jerry to help him escape, so Jerry takes to the streets himself. Nightclub entertainer Anne Taylor (Nancy Carroll) meets him, and convinces her boss Louis (Arthur Hohl) to hire him as her partner.
Hoppy goes undercover as an outlaw (which permits him, for once, to drink and be mean to children) to track down a bunch of outlaws operating along the border. Loco, the head bad guy, deflects suspicion from himself by pretending to be a moron.
Lance Lighton is arrested for vagrancy and taken by the sheriff to the Rogers Ranch. Dickie Rogers takes a liking to the stranger who is allowed to remain to do odd jobs and to entertain the boy. An old man who is hard of hearing mistakes Lighton for "Lightning" and the nickname sticks. Uncle Henry, heir to Dickie's share of the estate in the event of the latter's death, has been systematically cheated at cards by Bill Harvey, who now demands his money, using dire threats. Fearing a penitentiary sentence, Uncle Henry sees Dickie rolling helplessly in his wheel chair towards a cliff and does nothing to save him. Lazy Lightning saves the boy's life and the uncle covers himself by pretending to have sprained his ankle. Following the fright, the boy weakens and is close to death. The doctor thinks he can save him with serum. Uncle Henry goes in the car to get the serum. Mistrusting him, Lazy follows him to town on horseback through a driving rainstorm. A lost film.
An evil ranch foreman tries to provoke a range war by playing two cattlemen against each other while helping a gang to rustle the cattle. Each cattleman blames the other for missing cattle. With the help of Bill Cassidy (Hop-along, because of an earlier bullet wound) and Johnny Nelson, the warring cattlemen join forces to do in the outlaws.
Art Louden, foreman of the Bar H Ranch, is contemptuous of the masculine city flappers and effeminate city sheiks who are vacationing on the ranch, and when reproached by the owner, Bill Hayes, for discourtesy to a guest, Art complains that there are no "she-women" left. Seeing a newspaper photo of Iris Millard, he is attracted by her apparent innocence; then she arrives with her father, and Art is disillusioned to find her as snobbish and as jazzily dressed as the others. His disdain, however, causes Iris to play up to his ideas.
When Jesse learns that Krager is cheating settlers, he and his gang rob trains to obtain money for them to purchase their land. Krager, finding a Jesse look alike in Burns, hires him to wreck havoc on the ranchers. When Jesse kills Burns he switches clothes and goes after the culprits.
It's 1860 and the old Spanish land grants are being surveyed. Montez is after part of Don Regas' rancho and gets the surveyor to alter the boundary. But Don Regas still has the original grant written on a bandanna. Montez sends Indians after it but Bill Cody and Gabby fight them off and a wounded Gabby unknowingly ends up with the missing million dollar deed wrapped around his arm for a bandage.
Letty, a young woman who ended up pregnant, unmarried and on the streets at fifteen is bitter and determined that her child will not grow up to be taken advantage of. Letty teaches her child to lie, steal, cheat and anything else he'll need to be street smart.
Hoppy and Lucky are headed to South America to deliver a heard of cattle. Bay guy Ralph Merritt gets in their way. For a while.
Escaped criminal "The Fox" hates Hoppy and a Rurales colonel for imprisoning him and lures Cassidy to Mexico in order to exact his vengeance.
Lee Crush, an out-of-work cowhand, gets into a fight with Bull Dozier and knocks him through a railing. Thinking he has killed the man, Lee takes to his heels and finds work on the Shawn ranch. Lee prevents Clem Allen from swindling the Widow Shawn and falls in love with her daughter, Mary.
Belle Langtry runs a town being taken over by cattle rustlers. She is also a front for the outlaws, who are led by Steve Fraser. Hoppy gets elected sheriff and cleans up the town with help from the Bar 20 boys.
Peace River Parker, foreman of the Cross L Ranch and engaged to Jess, the daughter of the owner, is railroaded into a prison term by the false witness of Jefferson Crane, who covets the ranch and Jess. Through the complicity of Clell Danert, a villainous foreman who also desires Jess, Crane arranges to ruin the Marshall ranch by driving a herd of sheep onto the cattle range.
Cliff Barton, suspicious of the intentions of the local banker, Seth Tolliver, withdraws his money from the bank, hides it, and is later killed by two hirelings of the banker. Deputy Sheriff Art Stratton, who has trained Barton's horse and is in love with his daughter, Thora, is assigned to guard the ranch for the creditors; and Tolliver, who has designs on the property and wants his son to marry Thora, arranges to have the ranch auctioned.
