King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland secretly falls in love with Barbara Radziwiłłówna, a noblewoman of Lithuanian magnate lineage, defying his mother Queen Bona’s plans to wed him to a French princess.
Frankie Reynolds (Frankie Darro' ), youngest member of a family of jockeys, borrows $4.85 (yes, four dollars and eighty-five cents) from his sister Phyllis (Gladys Blake), who is not a jockey, to buy a crippled colt from the stables owned by Clay Harrison (Kane Richmond).
A newly hired police chief vows to clean up a notoriously corrupt police department. When he is murdered, investigators find that there is no shortage of suspects, most of them being fellow cops.
In London, August 1914, Austrian star Elsa Duranyi (Gertrude Michael) and English matinee idol Alan Barclay (Herbert Marshall) are in love and plan an immediate marriage.
Hoping to rid a small western community of its corrupt political machine, Ken Marshall (Ken Maynard) runs for sheriff against the bad guys' candidate and wins the election.
Although Larry "Buster" Crabbe earns top billing, the hero of Drift Fence is former Western star Tom Keene as Jim Travis, who, at a rodeo, meets city dweller Jim Traft, who has come west to erect a fence that will prevent Clay Jackson from continuing his cattle rustling business.