While trailing Forest Ranger Charles Carter, who is suspected of permitting lumber man Henry Mitchell to cut restricted timber, Gene fires at a dangerous mountain lion and apparently kills Carter. Actually, Bill Wright, Mitchell’s associate, killed Carter because the ranger had discovered tussock moth infestation in the forest, and if the infestation was not reported, the trees would die and have to be cut, thereby profiting Mitchell and Wright. In order to compensate the best he can, Gene sells his sportsman’s camp and gives the money to Carter’s daughter Helen . En route to Texas, Gene discovers the infestation and is assigned by the Forest Department to supervise the program of spraying the area with DDT from the air. After the first day of spraying, the DDT is blamed by furious stock men for the many animals found dead of poisoning.
Socialite Cathy Abbott (Jean Porter(I)’) is working in the chorus of a Broadway show instead of being enrolled at an exclusive girl’s school as her parents think. When the show closes, she brings two of her chorus friends, Patti Calhoun (June Preisser) and Vicki Adams (‘Judy Clark’), home with her. In addition to trying to make her friends acceptable to the snooty society of which her family is part, she is also being blackmailed by a rival. She and her two friends win over the blue-bloods with a couple of chorus routines, and she discloses she will be marrying the butler, Tommy Randell (Jimmy Lloyd), rather than the pompous Freddie Ainsley (Rick Vallin).
War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins Company C, 18th Infantry as this American army unit fights its way across North Africa in World War II. He comes to know the soldiers and finds much human interest material for his readers back in the States.