On the frontier, everyone has gold fever.  People are trying to find gold and steal gold and it falls to brave Treasury agents like Steve Ellison (Charles Starrett) and Smiley Burnette (played by Smiley Burnette) to keep things safe.  When Steve needs to find out who is trying steal gold, he puts on his mask and assumes the identity of The Durango Kid.

Near Laredo, a shipment of government gold has been stolen.  Dan Parks (Jim Bannon) is arrested after the gold is found in his wagon but Steve knows that the Durango Kid earlier warned Dan about traveling with gold.  Durango and Smiley set out to prove that Dan was set up by his business partner, Fenton (Hugh Prosser).

This yet another Durango Kid movie where Steve gets a job working for the bad guy while Durango works to thwart his plans.  (Remarkably, no one ever puts two and two together and notices that Steve, Smiley, and Durango always seem to show up in town at the same time.)  Fenton is just one of a long line of corrupt businessmen and land barons that Durango has had to deal with.  Fenton is not above threatening Dan’s young son (Tommy Ivo) to get Dan to do what he wants.  Given that Dan is just trying to make a good life for his family in a rough world, it’s satisfying when Fenton gets his comeuppance.

Almost every Durango Kid film featured at least one good fight scene.  In Trail to Laredo, the big fight takes place in a saloon and it’s pretty exciting.  Not only does the saloon get trashed but there’s a moment where one of the bad guys actually seem to fly through the air.  Even Virginia Maxey, playing Classy the saloon singer, gets in on it.

Both Virginia Maxey and Smiley Burnette get to sing a few songs.  As always, there enough gunfights and horse chases to keep fans of the genre happy.  Charles Starrett was a great cowboy.