A reluctant cavalry Captain must track a defiant tribe of migrating Cheyenne.

In Roy Rogers' Down Dakota Way, the deadly hoof-and-mouth disease has struck the herd owned by evil rancher H. T. McKenzie (Roy Barcroft). To avoid an expensive quarantine on his stock, McKenzie plans to murder the local veterinarian (Emmet Vogan) before the latter can report his findings to the government. Rogers manages to straighten out the situation by appealing to the sensibilities of the aunt (Elizabeth Risdon) of McKenzie's hotheaded hired assassin (Byron Barr). The film also bears several musical numbers from Roy, Dale Evans, and Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage.

During the Civil War, a Confederate spy takes a job as marshal of a small western town as a cover for his espionage activities. However, he soon finds out that a local businessman is selling weapons to a band of rampaging Indians.

A loud-mouthed Texas cowpuncher tries his hand at polo finding himself at odds with high society and trying to save a floundering Wild West show.

Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.

When Ranger Hoppy's falsely accused young ranger friend is killed while supposedly trying to escape from jail, Hoppy is blamed and drummed out of the Texas Rangers.

President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.