Sunset of Power is regarded as one of Buck Jones' more meritorious Universal westerns. The heavy of the piece, grim-visaged cattle baron Neil Brannum, drives everyone around him mercilessly, including his own granddaughter Ruth. In retaliation, a caped-and-masked Spanish bandido stages nightly raids on Brannum's spread.
A romantic triangle during WW I provides the basis of this drama. The trouble begins when a young wife gets involved with a coffee baron while her husband is off fighting WW I. Her shell-shocked husband finally returns. He is terribly jealous. To help him, the wife takes him to a Western dude ranch. Her lover also goes, and the two men soon become friends. The coffee magnate helps to cure him, but then breaks his heart by telling him that he and the wife are planning to run away.
Bill, who is about to lead a wagon train to California, has a map to a valuable gold field and Rocky is after the map. When Rocky and his men attack, Ken Manning breaks it up and later identifies Rocky and his men as the attackers. Expelled from the wagon train, they stampede a buffalo herd puting the Indians on the warpath. After the Indians attack the wagon train, Rocky thinks he can get the map.
Andy is a rich and well-respected man. But he's concerned what sort of boyfriend his daughter might have gotten as she's talking marriage and her previous boyfriends were very short-term and he didn't like them very much. So, when he learns where this boyfriend works, he goes undercover as a porter there to spy on him. Unfortunately, he ends up befriending the wrong folks and thinks the boyfriend is a crook...when it's really these new 'friends' who are jewel thieves.
When the Nevada Kid gets caught in a stage robbery, the gang leader Cherokee gets him released by forging a petition to the Governor. The Kid tries to go straight but the stage he is guarding gets robbed. When the Sheriff jails Cherokee who was not in on the robbery, the Kid gets caught effecting Cherokee's escape and finds himself in jail again.
Charley and Thelma are millionaires, each trying to elude suitors who are trying to marry them for their money. Charlie gets word that a rich uncle has died, leaving him millions. Attorneys advise him to repair to a resort and avoid gold diggers. Once there, word spreads among the single women, and several try to ensnare him. At first he's gullible, then he cottons on, so when Thelma, a wealthy young woman, mistakes him for a fortune hunter, he dismisses her as well. A manager's error puts Charlie and Thelma in the same suite, and both think the other is prospecting. A dressing gown, radio, bare feet, pistol, keyhole, fountain pen, bedcovers, and a suspicious hotel detective join the mix-up. But wait, was the inheritance a mistake?