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A mysterious outlaw known as Pegleg dreams of an empire in the vast, rich wilderness west of the Mississippi River. Army Lieurenant David Brent (Richard Fiske) is sent from Washington to persuade Kit Carson (Bill Elliott) to put an end to the reign of terror caused by Pegleg's gang called the Black Raiders. Carson agrees and, in the course of his assignment, he meets and is attracted to Caremelita Gonzales (Iris Meredith), the adopted daughter of a Spanish grandee, Don Jose Gonzales (Frrancisco Moran), who is heading west via a wagon train. Escaping an avalanche started by Perleg's henchmen, Kit captures Natchez (Dick Botiller), a Black Raider, and just as he is about to reveal the real identity of his boss, he is slain by Pegleg. As he seeks the killer, Kit narrowly escapes an Indian ambush and rides to warn the trappers and citizens at Stewart's Post that Pegleg intends to massacre them. The Black Raiders attack the post, but Pegleg, using his true identity, lures Caremelita to "safety."

Johnny Eaton, trouble-shooter for an American oil company drilling in China, leaves his bride-to-be to head for the Orient and straighten out problems at the inland-concession site his company controls. Chet Eaton, Johnny's brother and in-charge of the China operation, is drinking too much, plus a local Tartar bandit, Ho-Fing, is raiding and sabotaging the operation, having been bribed by a rival company. Johnny bribes him also but Ho-Fing is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately guy and doesn't stay re-bribed. Johnny decides hand-grenades speak louder than money, and have a longer-lasting effect on Oriental bandits.

A state prison is threatened by approaching floods, an epidemic of typhoid fever breaks out among the inmates, the prison's only doctor falls sick, there are only three nurses to administer vaccines and take care of stricken patients--and a group of prisoners is planning to use the chaos as a cover for a mass escape.