This fun oater has a young Roy as Bill Hickok. While it isn’t going to hold up under any historical scrutiny in regard to real events in the life of Bill Hickok, it sure is fun to watch. George Gabby Hayes and Sally Payne, portraying Calamity Jane and her Uncle Gabby, offer some fun dialog, their exchanges some of the best in the short Republic programmer that entertains in spades. Joseph Kane directs another of Roy’s films from an original story by Norton S. Packer and Olive Cooper. It’s got the Civil War, a shipment of gold, and foreign bad guys trying to take over California, but Bill Hickok ain’t about to let them. It’s even got a tie-in with the plot to kill Abe Lincoln!

Young Bill Hickok (Roy Rogers) gets wounded in a valiant effort to hold off Morrell’s Raiders, a bad bunch who have been disrupting communications to create chaos so that the foreign bad guy, Nicholas Tower (John Miljan), can move in and take over California. The papers dub Hickok “Wild Bill” and a legend is born. Bill has a pic of a Southern Belle in his pocket that saves him during a shootout, so you know there is going to be some cowboy romance. Hickok is on the Union side of the issue, but everybody plays fair and square here — except the bad guy from another country trying to work the war to his advantage. Pretty Jacqueline Wells (Julie Bishop) portrays Hickok’s love, Louise Mason, but it’s Sally Payne as the tomboy Calamity Jane and Gabby Hayes as her uncle, Gabby Whitacker, who make this one fun.

Hickok gets accused of stealing gold meant for the Union at one point and has to light out to clear himself. Silent star Monte Blue is Marshal Evans, who wants to give Hickok a chance, but only if he can come up with some proof of his innocence. Calamity and Gabby lend him a hand, and there’s some nice stunt work involving a moving wagon during the finale. Before it's all wrapped up, Payne gets to sing about tamales and chili beans, and Roy gets to serenade his girl and nearly singlehandedly expose the men behind the plot to kill Lincoln. Well, you just have to go with it.

There is a really fun bit that ends this one on a high note, like it began. Roy was more fond of his modern western stories, but this one is set in the West of old, and is a good old-fashioned, rootin’-tootin’ cowboy movie. Coming in at under an hour, this is a good one for Roy’s fans! ( )