Columbia’s 36th sound-era serial (following “Brick Bradford” and preceding “Superman”) was based on the character featured in “Calling All Boys Magazine” (comic book) and finds Tex Granger (Robert Kellard) heading toward Three Buttes, when he comes across a young boy, Timmy (Buzz Henry), guarding a gold shipment which he has just rescued from a stagecoach that had been held up by Blaze Talbot (Smith Ballew) and Reno (Jack Ingram.) Tex and Tim turn the gold over to its consignee Rance Carson (I.Stanford Jolley), who uses his loan office to carry out crooked land deals. Tex, persuaded by Helen Kent (Peggy Stewart), purchases the local newspaper. Blaze shows up in town, and Carson has him appointed town marshal, intending to use Blaze as his enforcer, but Blaze has higher aspirations, and soon the town is ablaze with gunfire and plots as Blaze, Carson and Reno and his gang battle each other and the citizens. Tex, mild-mannered newspaper man (one serial ahead of Clark Kent), dons a mask and becomes “The Midnight Rider of the Plains” and works against all three gang factions to bring law and order to Three Buttes.