After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.
A mix of guns and mistaken identity leads to chaos in this satirical parody of William S. Hart's melodramatic westerns, finding Buster in the frozen north - "the last stop on the subway".
The story involves Arbuckle coming to the western town of Mad Dog Gulch after being thrown off a train and chased by Indians. He teams up with gambler/saloon owner Bill Bullhum, in trying to keep the evil Wild Bill Hickup away from Salvation Army girl, Salvation Sue. Fatty and Buster have a series of adventures trying to beat St. John, until they discover his one weakness: his ticklishness.
Arizona range rider Lon Gilchrist helps stagecoach passengers fight off attacking Apaches. After rescuing a baby and binding her bleeding forehead with his handkerchief, Lon receives a reward that allows him to buy a ranch. Many years later, the rescued child, Lizzie Mayberry, is a waitress in a cheap restaurant, where she meets Lon, who, now wealthy, courts and marries her. Because he is so busy, Lon has his friend Del Beasley look after her. After a misunderstanding, Lizzie has Del take her to the railway station. Thinking that they left together, Lon pursues them.
Vowing vengeance on Edward Marriott, whom he believes to have dishonored his mother, The Shadow is a highwayman who robs only Marriott. The Shadow attracts the interest of Dorothy Harden, Marriott's fiancee, and finally he captures her. The action includes the kidnapping, by The Shadow's rival, Ben, of Dorothy; The Shadow's capture and escape; and his rescue of Dorothy. All is happily resolved when Dorothy declares her love for The Shadow and Marriott proves to be innocent of injuring The Shadow's mother.
A butterfly collector unwittingly wanders into an Indian encampment while chasing a butterfly, but the tribe has resolved to kill the first white man who enters their encampment because white oil tycoons are trying to force them from their land.
The famous army scout in an exhibition of rifle shooting. A fine picture of the principal, and beautiful smoke effects.
A saloon owner loans her lover the money to buy a house, which he has led her to believe they will live in after they're married. Instead, he takes the money and buys a saloon in another town.
During the raid on an emigrant train the girl and her brother, the only survivors, are attacked by the villain who kidnaps the girl and takes her to the camp of Calamity Anne, who takes a liking to the girl and becomes her guardian angel. The girl's brother is killed and a ranger takes the locket containing the girl's picture from his neck and recognizes the girl in Calamity Anne's camp. Later, Calamity Anne holds the villain and his band at bay and the girl and the ranger make their escape. The girl and the ranger come to the spot where the girl's brother is buried and here she asks the ranger if he is going to leave her there alone. His answer is to take her into his arms.
Ort Hutchins is a confirmed loafer who spends all of his time fishing while his wife toils over the washtub. One day, while digging for worms, Hutch uncovers a box containing $100,000 in bills, the loot of a bank robbed in the next town. Realizing that he cannot spend the money without arousing suspicion, Hutch resigns himself to taking a job for cover. ...
Alec Lloyd, the foreman of the Sewell ranch, is nicknamed "Cupid" because of his propensity for matchmaking. When Macie Sewell returns from boarding school, Cupid himself falls victim to love, but Macie has aspirations to go to New York and become an opera singer, and so ignores his advances. However, Leroy Simpson, a poor doctor who is enamored of Macie's father's money, encourages her ambitions....
In this story the young wife concerned is called upon to solve a rather momentous question. After separating from her husband, whom she has discovered to be a brute and a criminal, she is about to give herself to another man, believing her husband dead, when he appears before her fleeing from justice. Shall she deliver him to the law or surrender to his claims? She yields in one instance, but not in the other. Then justice intervenes.
Jeremy Dice, a finisher in a New York East Side tailor shop who prides himself on being a smart dresser and dancer, proves to be cowardly when he retreats from a bully who gets fresh with his girl, and his employer discharges him. Deciding to go out west, Jeremy is caught hitching the rails and comes upon two outlaws in the desert disputing over booty; they are both killed in a shoot-out, and Jeremy is proclaimed a hero by the sheriff.....
Pancha O'Brien, the beautiful and spirited daughter of an Irish ranch owner, is loved by two men, Sheriff Jack Webb, whom she loves, and outlaw Jim Dyke, whose attentions she repeatedly rebuffs. Jim and his men attack Pancha's ranch, burning it to the ground and killing her father. The outlaw carries her to his cabin, where Wan-o-mee, his jealous squaw, tries to stab the girl....
A young man in New York has exasperated his father because of his constant carousing and irresponsibility, so his father sends him to his uncle's ranch in the west. The young man arrives in the town of Piute Pass, which is being terrorized by Tiger Lip Tompkins and his gang, the Masked Angels. The Easterner befriends a young woman whose father is being held captive by Tompkins, and he decides to help her.
When Pinto reaches her eighteenth birthday, the five wealthy Arizonans who adopted her upon the death of her parents decide that ranch life will never make a lady of her. Their old friend Pop Audry, formerly of Arizona and now a member of New York society, agrees to provide Pinto with the necessary education. Accordingly, Pinto and her cowboy nursemaid Looey are dispatched to New York where they lose Audry's address. ...
Cowboy Billy Fortune is in love with Hope Beecher, who prefers Billy's friend Ben Morgan, but resists his advances because of his fondness for drink. Hope's discontent is echoed by the town wives' public outcry against drink. To divert their interest, Billy is nominated to make love to their leader, widow Fay Bittinger, who has already disposed of four husbands....
Jeanne La Roche lives alone with her brother in the great northwestern country. Jacques is a ne'er-do-well and has fallen under the suspicion of the mounted police, two of whom are dispatched to arrest him for robbery. The stolen goods are found in his home. Jeanne is too young to be left in their lonely cabin, so she is taken to the post, where the wife of the proprietor welcomes her and gives her a home. Several years later, Donald McLean wins her for his wife. Meantime Jacques escapes from prison, eludes his pursuers and takes refuge in McLean's home.
Two prospectors, one the father of Sky "Lightning" Bryce and the other the father of Kate Arnold, find a large gold deposit belonging to an Indian tribe. They head for home but each sends a note to their respective off-springs advising them of their good fortune. One of the fathers conceives a plan of taking a dagger and wrapping a piece of string around the blade, after which he prints on the string with a lead pencil, the exact location of their find. If something happens to them, the string goes to the son and the knife to the daughter. That night an Indian approaches their camp and blows some mysterious wolf powder which causes a man to see wolves in place of human beings. Lightning's father see his partner as a wolf and stabs him to death; later he is brought into town in a dying condition but before dying, hands the knife and the string over to the sheriff with instructions to deliver to Lightning and Kate.
Don Diego Vega pretends to be an indolent fop as a cover for his true identity, the masked avenger Zorro. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.