Acting
American actor best known for a short string of Hopalong Cassidy Westerns in the 1940s in which he played Cassidy's youthful sidekick Johnny Travers.
When three Texas Rangers try to investigate kidnapped Mexicans being used as forced labor in the mines of Silver Bullet, they are framed for murder by the town's corrupt sheriff.
As rustled cattle have mysteriously disappeared, Johnny sends for his friend Hoppy, Hoppy arrives and immediately suspects Dan Slack. Realizing his telegram about Slack was intercepted, he locks up the operator Lafe knowing he can escape. Tailing Lafe he finds a secret entrance to a mine and inside finds the missing cattle. But Slack's men also find him just as the cattle are stampeded through the mine shaft.
A bandit who robs both Americans and Mexicans is causing each side of the border to blame the other. Hoppy has to settle matters.
Hoppy, California and Johnny partner up with brother and sister ranch owners, two of several who are having their access to water blocked by a dam owned by a greedy merchant in town, who is intent on driving them out and taking their land for himself.
Posing as a cattle buyer, Hoppy crosses over into Oklahoma where the Jordan brother's and their outlaw gang operate outside the law. After receiving an unfriendly reception when he finds them, he, California, and Johnny rustle their cattle and drive across the river into Texas. He hopes they will cross over to retrieve their cattle and then he can arrest them.
Burton is after Clark's ranch. He gets the banker to refuse to renew Clark's note and then sends his men to rustle his cattle. Hoppy is Clark's new foreman and is on to Burton's scheme. But just as he learns of the rustling and is about to go after the gang, the Sheriff arrives and arrests him for hiding Johnny who has been accused of robbery.
One of two towns will be selected to be the County Seat and Editor Palmer has a gang working to make sure his town is chosen. Investigating the lawlessness, Red Ryder poses as an outlaw to get into the gang hoping to find out who the boss is. But Palmer knows Red and exposes his true identity when he arrives and Red and Gabby then find themselves prisoners of the gang. [Written by Maurice Van Auken]
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.
Rancher Rusty Williams is away at agricultural college and leaves his spread in the hands of his older cousin Shorty. Shorty wants to do more than run a ranch, however -- he wants to prospect for gold, but he has no money. He recruits a pair of partners in the guise of two runaway vagrants and a pair of backers in two stranded singers. But then Rusty shows up, and his four somewhat bumbling hired hands manage to compound Larry and Curly's deep ineptitude, and Rusty wants them all out of his hair.
Texas Rangers Tim Holt and Richard Martin are dispatched to halt a gang of masked outlaws terrorizing the frontier. Infiltrating the gang, Holt and Martin learn that the raiders are operating altruistically, robbing from the rich to give to the poor.