In 1820 Spain, the son of a California nobleman comes home to find his native land under a villainous dictatorship. On one hand, he plays the useless fop, while on the other, he is the masked avenger Zorro.

Starstruck Indiana small-town girl Lily is pestering theatrical producer John Thornway for a role but he is reluctant.

A poor singer in a bar masquerades as a rich society woman thanks to a rich benefactor.

A trio of American crooks board a ship bound for Europe, intending to get rid of $100,000 in stolen dough. With detective John Wade breathing down their necks, the crooks stash the loot in the trunk belonging to vacationing schoolmarm Mary Smith.

A former Yale student returns to the land where his Spanish forefathers once reigned supreme and lives in the Mexican hills, occasionally riding into border towns, where he takes the law into his own hands and protects the weak from crooked elements. Known as Quemado, he prevents the marriage of a girl to a notorious desperado and meets Joanna Thatcher, an eastern girl to whom he makes the promise that she will someday come to love him. Joan becomes engaged to Gretorix, unwilling to admit to herself that she has become infatuated with the daring horseman. On Joan's wedding day, Quemado kidnaps her, forces her to admit that she loves him, and arranges to be wed by a parson on horseback as they ride furiously into the hills to avoid the pursuit of the angry Gretorix.

Joyce Addison, wife of an American attache in Madrid, looks to her painting as sole entertainment, as her husband neglects her for business. One night late, while driving, she meets and is robbed by a bandit who proves sufficiently chivalrous to see her home.

Bored with his daily routine, Breckenridge Gamble accepts a secret mission from some oil magnates to deliver a message to President Losada of the South American Republic of Centralia. Upon his arrival, Gamble learns from Angela, the president's daughter, that her father has been imprisoned by Cortez, the leader of the revolutionaries. Gamble also is imprisoned but frees all the prisoners as well as himself by impersonating the prison comandante. After forming an army, Gamble delivers the message--a large money draft sufficient to pay the army and secure President Losada's government--and is rewarded with Angela's love.

Disguising herself as a masked bandit, Catalina, the ward of the governor of a Spanish province, avenges injustice, aids the poor, and plots a revolution.