Jim Warren is starting a range war by getting his boss Duke Bradley to fence off part of the range used by other ranchers. This pits father against son when Tom Bradley sides with a newly arrived nester family. Then after stealing Duke Bradley's money, Warren frames Duke's son Tom for the theft.

Ally Appleby is a country boy headed for the college campus, courtesy of his Aunt Polly and Uncle Lish. They're financing his education providing that he stay away from sports. Before his train even arrives at its destination, he earns the enmity of senior Horatio Winston. Winston is determined to make Appleby into the college boob and his plan is working until pretty coed Angel Boothby reveals the plot.

Maj. John Furth, a Southern race-horse owner, borrows money to enter his prize racehorse Blue Bird in a race back east, hoping to win enough money to replenish the family fortune. A crooked horse trainer, planted by the man who loaned Furth the money and who wants to marry his daughter Barbara, claims that Blue Bird is a "man killer" and must be shot. Charlie, a neighboring miner who also loves Barbara, doesn't believe it and takes Blue Bird to his mine. Complications ensue.

Jack Lane is returning from the East after an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a loan to pay off the mortgage on his father's ranch. On the train, he meets Ellen Rand, who is smitten at the sight of her first real cowboy. Later he learns that she is the nurse who is to care for his paralytic father, growing weaker at the prospect of losing his ranch. Jack plans to enter the local rodeo to earn the money, though Morton Kane, who holds the mortgage and has secretly discovered oil on the ranch, plots with his son Ross to keep him from the events.

The efforts of crooked rancher Stephen Laban to force his local bank into an unsecured loan are foiled by Fred Hunter and Jake Robbins, and Laban vows vengeance on the pair; but he is temporarily thwarted by the arrival from the East of society girl Millicent Delacey. Knowing her weakness for social prestige, Hunter arranges to masquerade as the Duke of Black Butte, a visiting nobleman on a hunting expedition; Millicent and her social-climbing mother completely succumb to the duke's charm.

The story is set in the Black Hills of South Dakota circa 1876. While making their way through the Badlands, a religious cult is terrorized by a bandit known only as Black Roger.

The touring show's soubrette, Jeanne D'Arcy, as it turns out, is the long-lost daughter of Westerner John D'Arcy. While she is performing at the town opera house, D'Arcy is found murdered and young Jack is accused of the heinous deed.

Dick Morgan, formerly a professional crook, returns from the war as the "Ace" of his squadron.

A young girl working as a dance-hall hostess gets mixed up in a scheme that smuggles illegal Chinese aliens into the country.