Saw this at the Movie History Museum in Lone Pine California in 2011; Lone Pine was, and still is, a major filming location for westerns and commercials, due to its varied landscape in different parts of the Owens Valley, lake-bed, joshua trees, and giant granite boulders. Zane Grey had written many books, and about half of them were turned into films. This one from 1940 has great sound quality, but less-than-great picture quality. At just over an hour, they squeeze a lot of action and story in this "oater" or "oat burner" (so named, since much of the action is one group chasing another group on horseback.) Due to a low budget and being filmed outdoors on location, the picture quality and the script suffer. A story of a girl in the wild west, Holly (played by Jean Parker) inherits a ranch, but the cattle are being rustled off her property. She crosses paths with Renn (Russell Hayden), who may not be who he seems to be. She needs the help of someone to save the cattle, and she thinks she has found her man.
Also appearing are the Kings Men, a group of singing cowhands, who keep breaking into song; they sang in films for about 20 years, from 1929 - 1949. Directed by Lesley Selander, expert director of westerns... this one one of the SEVEN he made in 1940 alone. Some pretty big names in this one; Parker was "Beth" in Little Women, and Hayden would go on to be the sidekick in Hopalong Cassidy. Also keep an eye out for J. Farrell MacDonald, who was in a TON of westerns - he plays Cappy, the ranch foreman in this one. Looks like this didn't make it to DVD, but maybe Turner Classics will show it. It has all the elements of a classic western, but watch it for the interesting California scenery.