With writer Bennett Cohen recycling the same script he had used at Republic in 1941 for Don Barry's "Desert Bandit", this 50th entry in the "Hopalong Cassidy" series finds Ranger Hopalong Cassidy falling into disrepute and leaving the service, because of the death of his pal and young protégé Tim Mason, who had lost his good standing through the suspicion that he was implicated with a band of smugglers, who had been using his ranch as a hideout. With the aid of his pals, California Carlson and Jimmy Rogers, Cassidy tracks down the outlaw gang, invades their hideout, and captures or kills the leaders, and regains both his and Tim's good names, while revealing his discharge from the Rangers was a plot hatched by him and Ranger Captain Jennings.