Rival telephone crews are in a race to be the first to connect telephone service between Rawlings and Cheynne, Wyoming. Lineman Tom Remington's girlfriend is the daughter of one crew foreman, who wants to win the race in order to re-establish himself in the business. However, the foreman of the other crew has his own scheme to win the race, and will stop at nothing--including kidnapping--to accomplish it.
When ranch foreman Tom Melford (Tom Mix) becomes engaged to Vi Gatlin (Victoria Forde), her father -- the ranch's owner (Pat Chrisman) -disowns her. They have a baby, but it becomes ill while Tom is away working a round up.
Mildred is traveling West in search of her long-lost father when she catches the roving eye of wicked dance-hall proprietor "Hawk" Kent. She turns him down flat and Kent has his henchman Blaze frame her in a crime. To keep herself out of jail, Mildred is compelled to work in Kent's dive, until the gallant Jack comes to her rescue.
Vaudeville artist LaBelle Geraldine and her dancing partner, Freddie Montgomery, are stranded in Arizona when their troupe breaks up. In order to raise money, Geraldine orders Freddie to impersonate masked bandit Black Jim so that she may turn him in and collect the $2,000 reward. When the real Black Jim holds up her coach, Geraldine, believing that he is Freddie, boldly pulls out her gun, whereupon the bandit shoots her in the wrist and takes her to his cabin. Later Freddie, too, is captured, but when members of the gang insult Geraldine, he refuses to protect her. Gradually Black Jim falls in love with her, and she comes to admire him so deeply that instead of seizing a chance to escape one night, she returns to warn him of the gang's plot to kill him.
A cowboy is falsely accused of killing the local sheriff. Fleeing the law, Wilson obtains a job on a ranch.
Helen, wrongly suspected of murder, escapes to the refuge of Jim's Ranch, where love soon blooms.
Maria Lopez is the daughter of an American mother and a Mexican father, who is the head of a band of insurgents. As a child, she was kidnapped by her father and raised south of the border to hate gringos. She begins to like them a lot better when, during an escape from some Mexican "Rurals," she crosses the border and is captured by Texas Ranger Danny O'Neil. He lets her go, and they fall in love, but their romance is interrupted when she hears that her father has been captured by Americans.
With the help of Red Barton (Wade Boteler), Phil (Jack Holt) makes a spectacular escape from jail. He obtains a parson's outfit from a pawnshop and shortly thereafter winds up in a barroom brawl. One of the other brawlers is Chuckwalla Bill (J.P. Lockney), the newly elected mayor of the town of Panamint.
The Brockton clan considers the mountain Little Smoky their own, but then the government comes in and declares it a forest and game preserve. This doesn't stop the family, who swears they will do what they want with the land.
Dad, a likable old pioneer character, lived among the foot hills of the western mining region, on a ranch with his two daughters, Rose and Madge. As sort of a side issue he had been doing a little prospecting, and about the time the story starts, we see him carrying some of his quartz to Andy Thomas, a young assayer located in a nearby village.
Texas Pete, a gun-man, is "extra" bad when in liquor. This, however, does not terrify the ranch foreman, who discharges him for drunkenness. Pete laces on his hardware and lurches off, with the intention of shooting up the town where he pumped in his original trouble.
Willie Clever, city born and bred, having been spoiled with plenty of money, thinks he knows it all, or nearly all. His father buys a ranch in Arizona and sends Willie out to run the business. He comes with "all the fixin's," and has not been on the place an hour before he tries to run, or reform the outfit. The cowboys decide he needs some experience.
Steve and Tom are rivals for the hand of Mona.
Dare Devil Tom Wallace, so called because of his seeming lack of fear, is held up while riding in the stage and robbed by a masked desperado named Morgan. Wallace finds the trail of the robber and follows it to the face of a cliff.
Ted, the foreman of "The Diamond S. Ranch" is in love with Dora, Dad's daughter. Tafe is the leader of a band of desperate characters that have been terrifying the neighborhood for some time. He sees Dora and immediately decides to try and make an impression upon her.
The "Diamond S" ranch abounds in thrilling scenes of dare-devil cowboy life.
Hiram Hughes, foreman on "Pop" Lynd's ranch in Bingo Gulch, has quit his job. He has had enough of "Wild Jim," who is the pest of the ranch. In despair, Pop goes to Bingo, where he places a sign on the post office, advertising for a new foreman. "Easy" Thompson, the star performer of the "Circle Bar Ranch" show, has had enough of circus life and resigns his job.
In Old California When the Gringos Came is a 1911 silent film
Hank Wilson, a good-natured cow puncher, loves a rancher's daughter, and finally musters up courage enough to make known his love. She looks upon the matter as a joke, and coquettishly furnishes him considerable annoyance.