Summaries

Synopsis

Government agent Tex Stewart goes to the Border States Railroad office to talk with the president of the company about a mysterious "ghost train" that has been seen in the territory. Jeffers, the president, is dead, however, and his daughter Sally, under the influence of Hiram Slaughter, will not hire the detective, who is posing as an outlaw named "The Pecos Kid." Later, Tex and his friends, Ananias and Pee Wee, see the train, and Tex concludes that it is really part of a cattle rustling operation. When Tex goes back to Sally to tell her about the cattle rustling, she reluctantly agrees to hire him. Later, Slaughter, who secretly heads the gang of cattle rustlers, meets Badger and some of his other men in a saloon and tells them to "take care" of Tex. Badger is anxious to comply, and when Tex gets word that Slaughter wants to see him in the saloon, he goes, accompanied by Pee Wee and Ananias. Badger threatens Tex, warning him to leave town, after which a fistfight breaks out among Badger's cohorts and Tex and his pals. After a knife is thrown at Tex in the melee, he escapes with Pee Wee and Ananias, who soon discover the body of Mason, a railroad employee, by the river. They learn that the ghost train has never been seen west of Desert Wells, a town near the Mexican border. Soon Tex and the boys discover that the cattle rustlers are sidetracking the train by using obsolete tracks leading to the border. They follow the train and find it at a hideout in a valley just across the border. Tex then takes the train back to town. Although Badger and his men see what Tex is doing, they do not try to stop him and instead tell Slaughter that now Tex will be blamed for the cattle rustling. Slaughter then goes to Sheriff Clayton to accuse Tex of being the rustler and tells him that Tex uses the train to take cattle across the border. Clayton then arrests Tex, Pee Wee and Ananias, and Sally turns against them. The three are sentenced to be hanged for cattle rustling, but Clayton is revealed to be an old friend of Tex's and, after the bank is robbed, he releases the three men to join his posse. As they approach the ghost train, Badger is killed, then Tex jumps on board, fights Slaughter and pushes him off just before the train reaches the border. Finally, Tex returns to town to serenade Sally.