Saddlemates (1941)

The Cattlemen's Association has called in the Mesquiteers to find cattle rustlers. They get Tex Riley to pose as Stony so Stony can arrive posing as a wanted outlaw. This gets Stony into the gang of rustlers and he alerts Tucson and Lullaby as to the next raid. But Hartley is on hand and unknown to anyone is the rustler's boss and he joins the posse with a plan that will do away with the Mesquiteers.

The Mesquiteers capture a horse thief who escapes justice through a crooked judge. They gather signatures urging the governor to investigate but a friend with the petition is murdered. Stony is accused.

The Three Mesquiteers convince a group of settlers to exchange their present property for some which, unbeknownst to our goodguys, is going to be worthless. They are captured before they can warn the ranchers.

Nancy Evans, lovely circus owner, has a ranch that she's never visited, but for sentimental reasons won't sell to Mike Abbott. Her partners, secretly in league with Abbott, sabotage the circus to force Nancy to sell the ranch; instead, she goes there to live. Will her neighbors, the Three Mesquiteers, be a match for the secret swindlers? And what's so valuable about that run-down ranch anyway?

Will Parker has been destroyed by a local politician and now must steal to feed his family. He steals a steer from the Three Mesquiteers.

The three Mesquiteers try to recover the gold stolen by a gang in its effort to ruin the banker/mayor who ordered them to leave town.

After gold shipments from a mining town have been hijacked, the three Mesquiteers buy a plane to fly the gold out. The owner of the shipping line brings in Eastern gangsters to thwart them.

When a group of World War 1 buddies head west to farmstead, they run into trouble.

It is 1853 and settlers are pouring into California which means trouble for the old Spanish landowners. The El Dorado Mine Co. wants the land of Don Ortega for the minerals and is using the settlers and his friend Don Carlos to take the land over. But Tucson is on the side of Roberto and see's that something is not right with all the trouble they have been having. But the situation turns ugly for Don Ortega when Roberto is set up for a murder he did not commit.

Commissioner Tredwell is the law of the land and he gets whatever he wants with the help of hired guns and lackey lawyer Conners. The only one who publicly stands up to Tredwell is Beecham of the Clarion. Beecham has his paper burned to the ground and when he starts a petition to make Wyoming a state, taking the power away from Tredwell, he is killed. But when Kansas Kate comes in to visit her son Conners, she sees what is going on and she takes over the paper and keeps the pressure on Tredwill. With this Conners has mixed emotions, but the boys do everything they can to protect Kate and the paper. Written by Tony Fontana

Talbot uses a phony land grant to rule thirteen million acres, taxing everyone heavily and evicting those who won't pay. The Three Mesquiteers becomes mysterious "night riders" to fight this evil.

A crooked real estate manipulator sells worthless land on mortgage to flood refugees, then tries to profit by reselling the land to the state, committing murder in the process, as the Three Mesquiteers work to bring him and his gang to justice.

The first of eight "Three Mesquiteers" Westerns to star John Wayne.

Stony Brooke, Rusty Joslin and Rico, known as The Three Mesquiteers, return to Oklahoma at the close of the Spanish-American War, and are concerned that some of their wounded buddies have no prospects for a satisfactory future. When the government offers preferred homesteads in the newly-opened Oklahoma territory to war veterans, they send word for their pals to join them there. Once there, the veterans meet a hostile reception as the cattlemen resent the influx of "nesters" and are determined to drive them out. Mace Liscomb and his brother Orv plan not only to drive out the homesteaders, but to also double cross the cattlemen and gain exclusive titles to the range lands for themselves. Stony and his pals eventually show the honest cattlemen that there is room for the settlers and that both are fighting a common enemy. Written by Les Adams

The Mesquiteers try to help their friend build a telegraph system, despite a local newspaper editor's attempts to sabotage the lines.

Daggett is out to stop the completion of an oil well. He cheats Foster at poker and then forces him to delay the drilling. But the Mesquiteers are on the job with Lulaby posing as a cleaning lady to get evidence.

In 1937 the life in out West has not changed much. The boys are working at the Wyoming ranch of Captain Marvin herding horses which he sells to Kurt Redman. Marvin will not sell any horses to any army, but the boys find out that Redman is a German agent shipping the horses directly to the Third Reich. When Marvin tries to stop Redman, his son Tad, who is studying medicine in Germany, is arrested and held hostage. Marvin must fire the boys as the sneaky German agents take over the ranch, but the boys will not give up their attempt to stop them.

Stony's brother George has been accused of murder and the Mesquiteers have returned to prove his innocence. But they find that Harvey rules the town along with his stooge Sheriff Gray and that George won't get a fair trial.

Harris and Rigby own a circus. Rigby is a counterfeiter and frames his partner. The Mesquiteers learn Rigby is the culprit and get a confession from one of his men only to lose the case when the man is murdered in jail. The Mesquiteers try again and send Lullaby to try and win some of the fake bills in a card game.

After a payroll robbery the Mesquiteers catch up with the gang. But the members escape, the gang leader is killed, and they end up with only the leaders young son who is quickly sent to a work farm. They adopt the boy hoping to learn where the money is. Just as their kindness is about to pay off a gang member takes the boy away forcing him to retrieve the money. - Written by Maurice VanAuken