Warren Randolph, known in New Mexico as Santa Fe Pete, visits the Virginia plantation of Col. Henry Morgan, a Kentucky expatriate who has recently lost his fortune. At the sheriff's tax sale, Pete buys the Morgan property, saying nothing about it to the colonel. Pete immediately sends for an oil expert, and he then returns to the Morgan property, where he finds Dan Murray, a crooked oil man, attempting to force his attentions on Lucy in front of her helpless mother. Pete lights into Dan, who makes his escape on the colonel's best horse. Pete finds the old gentleman in the barn, unharmed except for his pride. The sheriff arrives with Pete's oil expert and informs Pete that Murray is notorious criminal. Pete mounts Lightning and goes after him, beating him in a rugged fight. Pete is later forced to tell the colonel that he owns the ranch, and the old fellow is, at first, furious, but when Pete informs him that his father rode with the colonel during the War Between the States, everything is set straight.