Peter "Junior" Potter, Bob Hope, fresh from Harvard, travels west to the dusty town of Sawbuck Pass to claim his father’s fortune. He rolls in a jalopy wearing a comical red-and-white striped Harvard blazer, splashing mud on a crowd and quickly learning that almost everyone in town claims to be owed money by his father, and that the fabled treasure chest is mysteriously empty.
As he struts through town, the old-timer Eb Paul E. Burns curries his favor with a pitch: the gold does exist, it’s just hidden away. In the saloon, Potter meets Roy Roy Rogers, a singing cowboy, and Mike Jane Russell, a sharp, alluring saloon performer with a masculine edge who resists his advances. The two men sing together while Potter rails about Harvard, and Mike drugs him. While Potter sleeps, Mike assumes her alter ego, the Torch, and leads a nighttime raid with her gang. Potter, ever the showman, manages to supply a perfect alibi, even as the townsfolk sabotage his car. He improvises by adding cart wheels to his vehicle and escapes across the desert, hitching a ride with two vultures before reaching the ghost town of Sterling City.
In Sterling City, Potter discovers Eb dead in a barber’s chair. Roy arrives to confront him, accusing him of murder. Potter disguises himself as Roy in a bid to escape on Trigger [Trigger], the loyal horse. Roy is revealed as a government agent with a hidden weapon—a Smith & Wesson Model 320 Revolving Rifle—concealed in his guitar case, and his mission is to bring Mike in.
The town is attacked by Indians, and Potter is initially too frightened to fight; Roy steps forward to defend them. Paleface’s ghost appears to spur him on, suggesting that Hell isn’t so bad after all, and he grabs a gun from the spinning barber chair, firing in erratic directions. A stray shot hits a moose head, and suddenly Potter’s father’s gold begins to pour from the chest. Mike arrives to lend a hand, and together they manage to escape in Potter’s improvised car.
Roy leads the assault on the gang’s hideout in an abandoned mine, and with a little accidental help from Potter, they prevail.
Back in the town, Potter waits for Mike as she emerges from prison, accompanied by four Junior Juniors, while Roy rides off into the distance. In the final moment, Trigger stands silhouetted against the sunset as the pair says goodbye, leaving Sawbuck Pass behind.
