Pride of the Plains

In Cherokee County, rancher Hurley and his men start a series of wild horse stampedes in order to convince other ranchers to allow him to put the horses to death so he can secretly sell their meat. Hurley then writes a petition calling for the repeal of laws which protect wild horses from being killed and asks the most successful rancher around, Grant Bradford, to sign. Although Joan, who is Bradford's daughter and sweetheart of Sheriff Kenny Revere, agrees with Hurley, Bradford's foreman, Jasper Darwin, instead advises Bradford to continue to guard the horses. Hurley and his cohorts, Snyder, Gerard, Bowman and Steve Craig, then decide to have Bowman's horse, Black Cloud, who has been trained to start the stampedes, trample Jasper so it will look as if he has been killed by a runaway wild horse. After Jasper is killed, Bradford agrees to sign the petition, as Kenny writes to his brother, Game Commission Inspector Johnny Revere, asking for help. As Johnny rides into town with his sidekick, self-proclaimed animal doctor Frog Millhouse, they witness a stampede and catch Snyder and Gerard at the scene. When they bring the men back to Bradford's, however, Hurley insists they were merely rounding up stray horses, and, though suspicious, Johnny is forced to release them. Johnny deputizes all the citizens to help him guard the area, and after a few peaceful weeks, he decides to requisition a state-run patrol unit. Hurley orders Snyder and Gerard to keep Johnny from sending his requisition letter, and they start a fistfight, which Johnny wins. Bowman, meanwhile, paints Black Cloud white so he resembles one of the wild stallions. Soon after, Bowman rigs Bradford's saddle so the rancher falls off his horse, then signals Black Cloud to trample Bradford to death, making it appear as if the wild stallion was the culprit. When Kenny hears about the attack, he organizes a posse to kill the wild stallion. At the same time, however, Johnny finds a horseshoe and white paint at the crime scene, which prove that the shoeless wild stallion could not be the killer. Johnny and Frog then capture the stallion and try to convince Kenny that the gentle horse did not kill Bradford, but Kenny insists on a trial. Johnny and Frog immediately steal the stallion, who cannot hope for a fair trial, and ride out of town, with Kenny on their trail. In the hills, Johnny runs into Hurley, who pretends to help him by hiding the stallion at his cabin, while Kenny overtakes Frog and takes his horse. At Hurley's cabin, Johnny notices that Black Cloud has paint on his body and is missing a shoe, and therefore must be the killer horse, and so pulls a gun on Hurley's men. Just then, Kenny arrives and hears the accusation, and as a gunfight breaks out, he helps Johnny and Frog. Outside the cabin, after Hurley steals Black Cloud, Bowman signals the horse to trample Hurley. Kenny then arrests Bowman for the deaths of Hurley and Bradford. Days later, Kenny announces his upcoming marriage to Joan, while Johnny and Frog release the stallion back into the wild.