A singing entomologist (Roy Rogers) acts meek to help a juggling sheriff (George "Gabby" Hayes) solve ranch raids.
When asked about the Ghost Riders song he sings, Gene Autry tells this legend: Gene is about to resign as an investigator for the county attorney and go into the cattle business with his pal Chuckawalla Jones but decides instead to help Anne Lawson clear her father, rancher Ralph Lawson, of a false murder charge. He looks for the three witnesses who can testify that Lawson shot only in self defense in killing a gambler, but the witnesses are terrorized by another gambler, town boss Rock McCleary, who shoots witness Pop Roberts Morgan. Fatally wounded, Pop gives Gene the information needed to clear Lawson, then dies crying the "Ghost Riders" are coming for him. Gene then heads for a showdown with McCleary.
Gene Autry becomes the new Sheriff after bank robbers kill the former sheriff. When Judge Beaumont is murdered, evidence points to the judge's wild son. Believing the young man, Gene tries to help.
Caxton has broken out of prison and Eddie has been sent to bring him in. Caxton is known by the polka dot band on his hat and Eddie has Soapy wear one like it. This gets Soapy arrested as soon as he rides into town but it leads Eddie to Varney and he realizes Varney will lead him to Caxton.
A Hollywood scout averts disaster for a singing cowboy she has misled.
Dorothy, and her big city lawyer boyfriend, return to the Lazy 'B' ranch to read her late father's will. For Dorothy to inherit everything, she must stay on the ranch for 5 years. If she does not, everything goes to Buck, who is the manager. She does not like Buck, so she makes a deal with the wrong people for cattle and then the outlaws go to the ranch to get the $10,000 from her. But Buck is on the job.
When the showboat hits town, two men use the parade as a distraction to rob the bank. Their accomplice is Pop, the clown from the showboat. He leaves the money on the boat and tells his daughter Patsy to bring it to him at a later stop on the river. Gene's investigation of a bank robbery takes him to the showboat where he becomes a performer. Gene and Frog try to find the money while helping Patsy and her father.
Marshal Landry captures outlaw Girard and bringing him in finds a woman and two children, the only survivors of an Indian attack. Later, transferring the prisoner his brothers free him. Then a stage is robbed of a silver shipment by Girard and his brothers. Examining telegrams gets Landry a confession from Girard's girlfriend. The telegraph line has been tapped and the telegrapher is the supposedly dead husband of the woman he brough in. Now knowing Girard's location he sets out after him.
A singing cowboy (Dick Foran) thwarts a thieving judge and courts a woman (Anne Nagel) in Texas.
Three cowboys find that a U.S. Marshal relative is an impostor.
Bill Sanger has his men out raiding and killing to obtain the ranches along the route that he knows the new railroad will use. He then kills the editor that received a letter that would expose him. But the editor earlier hid the letter in a chamber of his gun. Marshal Monte Hale arrives and eventually suspects Sanger and breaks into his house. After a gungight Sanger catches him and with one shot left shoots Monte. But he is using the editor's gun.
Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.
President Lincoln personally sends Bill Gibson west to see if he can stop the holdups of the needed shipments of gold. There he meets his boyhood friend Foster. When all others refuse to take out the next gold shipment due to the killings, Bill volunteers. Jeannie, afraid for his safety, tells Foster of Bill's secret route not knowing Foster is the leader of the outlaw gang.
Sandy Doyle, gambler and political chief of a small border town, seeks to gain control of the Bar-X Ranch, owned by Rufe Rickson, to further some undercover activities of his own. He counts on Rickson's inability to stay away from gambling as the means to his ultimate success. Government investigator Oliver Shea and his assistant, Dan Haggerty, start a fight in Doyle's place when they see Rickson being cheated and are invited to the Bar-X where Oliver and Helen Rickson, Rufe's daughter, discover interest in each other and Dan finds himself pursued by Bell, the ranch cook. Sheriff Larson brings the prize money for the $5,000 race of the Rodeo Association, and that night it is stolen.
Roy returns home to fine a range feud between the cattlemen and the sheepmen. When his friend is killed he finds the rifle had a defective pin. He learns the rifle belongs to a ranch hand named Barker and that a third party has caused the feud. When he captures outlaws trying to blow up a dam, he claims Barker was the killer. But Barker has switched rifles and the outlaws now accuse Roy and Roy finds himself in trouble.
Gene is the foreman at the ranch owned by wealthy rodeo owner Maureen. She will lose her rodeo contract unless sales improve.
Tex and his sidekicks arrive to help out his friend Jeffers, a railroad owner, only to find that he has been killed. They quickly run into trouble with an outlaw gang in their attempt to find the mysterious ghost train that supposedly runs on Jeffer's line.
Duke Dillon has his gang robbing stagecoaches carrying gold which is then melted down by his father. But Eddie and his sidekick Soapy are on the job and they are aided by undercover man Nevada.
James Kincaid controls the local water supply and plans to do away with the other ranchers. Government agent Sandy Saunders arrives undercover to investigate Kincaid's land swindle scheme, and win the heart of one of his victims, Fay Denton.
His horse Champion steals the show from Gene when what's at stake is a horse race and a bull fight.