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.
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.
A Hollywood scout averts disaster for a singing cowboy she has misled.
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.
A singing entomologist (Roy Rogers) acts meek to help a juggling sheriff (George "Gabby" Hayes) solve ranch raids.
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.
Three cowboys find that a U.S. Marshal relative is an impostor.
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.
Finding Indians stealing from his ranch, Gene learns they are suffering from malnutrition. Store owner Martin is cheating them and now he is after the Chief's valuable necklace. When the dying chief is found, having been attacked and robbed, Martin blames Lakhona who would become the new chief. When Gene helps Lakhona they soon find themselves fleeing from the law.
Cattle buyer Rex Allen rides into Taskerville and sees two men toss Slim Pickens, a water diviner hired by the local ranchers, into a wagon. Rex chases the wagon to the barn of rancher Lem Shaver, where he learns from Slim that Russ Tasker, a wealthy rancher and owner of the only artesian-fed reservoir in the valley, has charged such high prices for water that the ranchers are bankrupt. Tasker's henchmen kill rancher Matt Becker and have his son Johnny branded as an outlaw. Rex learns that the Beckers had found a meager water supply and Rex suspects that is what led to the killing and the charges against Johnny. With the aid of Slim and Johnny's sweetheart, Sue, Rex finds that the Becker spring is fed from the same underground lake that feeds Tasker's well-guarded reservoir. But Rex is jailed for aiding Johnny.
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.
A singing cowboy roams the Wild West with his sidekick, dancing horse and fancy wardrobe.
Kate Diamond owns the Roaring Falls Trading Post from where she directs her gang's gun-smuggling to the Indians. After she short-changes smuggler Stacey, his men attempt to steal the hidden guns, and attack her foreman Nebraska, but he is saved by Jimmy and "Cannonball" on their way to file a homestead claim at Canyon City. Jimmy renews a long acquaintance with Sheriff Harris and his daughter Jessica. The sheriff is wounded by half-breed Danny when he finds a rifle hidden in the latter's wagon, but Jimmy captures the outlaw, a go-between for Kate and the Indians.Wounded and in bed, Sheriff Harris ask Jimmy not to tell Jessica that she is only adopted and that Nebraska is really her father, although he believes her to be dead.
On vacation at his ranch, western actor Roy quickly finds himself involved with a horse rustling operation and a boy ward of one of the rustlers, leading to the kidnapping of Roy's trick horse Trigger by the gang with a demand for ransom.
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.
The drought-plagued ranchers of Sundown have to market their cattle at a loss in order to meet mortgage payments held by banker Cylus Cuttler. Then, Sheriff Tex Rockett is forced to quarantine all the cattle on the local ranches because of a hoof-and-mouth disease outbreak. Steve Davis herds his cattle to the railhead anyway, and Tex is forced to arrest him. Urged on by the banker's son, Nick Cuttler, the angry ranchers storm the jail, but Steve's sister Bee persuades them to await the trial. Steve, with Nick's help, breaks jail and is told he must kill Tex to aid the ranchers. Meanwhile, government man Bret Stockton and Tex see Nick and his men treating cattle in an unusual way. Tex finally proves that the Cuttlers have been treating the cattle with acid to give a false impression of the hoof-and-mouth disease.
A Hollywood singing-cowboy star with a big heart and an even bigger secret (he uses a double in most scenes because he can't ride, fight or sing) comes to the aid of a rancher about to lose his home on a rodeo bet.
Eddie Dean's assignment is to thwart the efforts of a crooked gambler, Brad Barton, to take over the property of his half-brother Bill Ryan. In order to secure the ranch, which is believed to hold large silver deposits, the scheming relative contracts to have Ryan killed. He then presents a forged will to the court naming himself as the sole heir. Shocked by the tide of events, Ryan's two rightful heirs, his grown daughter Robin and young son "Freckles" are determined to remain on their father's property. Eddie and his sidekick, Soapy Jones, arrive on the scene in time to enter the fight on the side of Robin and "Freckles."
A singing cowboy and his sidekick rescue miners from a bad deal.