Apparently Doc Wallace (Joseph Greene) would have been a lot better off if he never visited Johnny Trent (Tex Ritter) in San Francisco and talked him into coming back home to Arizona. The pretext established by the villain later in the story was that Johnny's presence would have caused his ailing father Dan (Erville Alderson) further anxiety, perhaps enough to bring on a heart attack. That would precipitate Johnny's inheriting the Lazy T Ranch which he would have been glad to sell to Wallace since he and his pal Kansas Cobb (Fuzzy Knight) preferred traveling the world instead of settling down in one place.

I guess the screenwriter forgot that Dan Trent legally adopted his foreman Wayne Carson (Dennis Moore) and bequeathed the ranch to him in his will. On top of that, since Doc Wallace knew everything there was to know in Canyon City, how would that bit of information slip by him? I think the filmmakers were trying too hard to come up with a plausible story here and they got it all botched up.

Well does it matter? Pre-teen matinée fans of the day wouldn't have bothered figuring all that out and would have just gone along with Tex, Fuzzy and all the rest in another action shoot 'em up with the good guys coming out on top in the end. In between the horse chases and villainy, Tex hooks up with Johnny Bond and the Red River Valley Boys in a passel of tunes, with Fuzzy Knight offering a slick number called 'The Devil's Gonna Laugh' which had some fun lyrics.

It all comes to a dramatic conclusion when Johnny Trent and Wayne Carson patch up their differences and corner the Doc and Ace Vincent's (Jack Ingram) gang at the town saloon. With both sides going at it, Kansas and Pop Trent provide the equalizer with their billiard ball offense, and the story closes with pretty Martha Brooks (Janet Shaw) arm in arm with both of the story's heroes. She's going to marry one of them, but your guess is as good as mine.

NOTE*** I never looked at it this way, but after the movie there's a pitch for Americans to buy war bonds, and the way it's stated offers a unique perspective. It reads 'You're not giving - just lending, when you buy war savings stamps and bonds'. I thought that was a pretty good way to say it.