A posse discovers a trio of men they suspect of murder and cow theft and are split between handing them over to the law or lynching them on the spot.
Bolton has organized a feud between the Rork's and the O'Neil's. He has rustled cattle and killed a man putting the blame on Danny O'Neil. Tom Rork has found a bullet with markings on it that he hopes will clear Danny and bring in the real killer.
When his cattlemen abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his cowboys in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage, however, neither he nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves is stalking them.
Bob Tyler has rustler trouble while driving a herd of cattle to the new owner, but he refuses to turn the herd over to Frank Kellogg. He has a run-in with Jean Polk, discovers she is the owner of the cattle, and is fired. With his friend, Barney McCool , Bob snoops around and discovers that Kellogg is behind the rustling.
Notorious shootist and womanizer Quirt Evans' horse collapses as he passes a Quaker family's home. Quirt has been wounded, and the kindly family takes him in to nurse him back to health against the advice of others. The handsome Evans quickly attracts the affections of their beautiful daughter, Penelope. He develops an affection for the family and their faith, but his troubled past follows him.
Cattlemen Protective Agent Reb Russell arrives to try and stop the cattle rustling. He gains a friend when he saves Jack Thorn from Lenahan and his men. They hire on at the Lund ranch and when her cattle are rustled and she is kidnaped they follow the trail, It's Lenahan and his gang and Reb soon finds himself a prisoner.
A rancher, frustrated with constant cattle rustling and the inability of the local sheriff to stop it, is accused of murder when the sheriff is found dead.
Deputy Sheriff John Steele recruits bandit Sonora Joe to help him find out who's been bumping off all the local lawmen and rustling the cattle.
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.
Escaped criminal "The Fox" hates Hoppy and a Rurales colonel for imprisoning him and lures Cassidy to Mexico in order to exact his vengeance.
Caldwell and Nixon have their men rob the stage and then critcize the Sheriff for not catching the robbers. With her father the Sheriff under pressure, Mary sends for Hoppy who finds the stolen money and sets a trap to bring in the entire gang.
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.
Hoppy goes undercover as a gambler from the East when Bar 20 cattle are stolen by unknown rustlers. Brennan/Talbot are twin brothers (one a casino owner, the other a rancher) and Hoppy believes they provide alibis for each other while one is out committing crimes. Hoppy gets a job in the casino to learn more but is exposed when a gambling gunslinger notices him.
A crusading newspaper editor recruits his old friend Hoppy to take the job of Marshall in a town rife with vice and murder directed at helpless miners.
On a cattle drive Hoppy, camp cook Windy, companion Lucky, and young Artie Peters encounter an eccentric professor. The professor professes to be searching for the evolutionary missing link, but in reality he is a cattle rustler who uses his dynamite to scatter the cattle in order capture some of them. Hoppy and Bar 20 guys ultimately capture the professor.
Hoppy's brother has been murdered and he is on the trail of the murderers. To get them he makes himself seem to be a wanted man.
The U.S. Army needs more horses for the Spanish-American War. Hoppy must turn his Bar 20 cowhands into Rough Riders to gather up the horses, and of course bad guys try to sabotage the operation.
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.
Hopalong Cassidy, boss of the Bar 20 ranch in Texas, rides down the Camino Real in the New Mexico cattle country near Alamogordo, in response to an urgent message from his lifelong sweetheart, Nora Blake, who is in serious trouble. Before he and his saddlemates, "Lucky" Jenkins and "Pappy", can reach her ranch, they are stopped by Clay Allison, a cattle-rustler who is in almost complete control of the district, and wants to extend his holdings by seizing Nora's cattle and driving her out. Seeing Cassidy as a menace to his plans, he has him arrested on a trumped-up charge. Cassidy and his pals shoot their way out of the trouble and reach Nora;s ranch where they learn that Allison's henchmen have murdered her foreman, Tom Dillon, and Allison has sent for a crew of outlaws on the Texas border.
Hoppy returns to find Johnny in trouble. Buck Peters has been shot by Porter who made it look like Johnny did it. When Johnny flees he runs into Linda. He takes a liking to her only to learn her father Shanghai is one of Porter's gang. Going after Shanghai, he gets captured by the gang and Porter now plans to kill him. But Hoppy is near by and Johnny will get unexpected help from Shanghai.