Stan and Oliver have been entrusted to deliver the deed of a gold mine to the deceased prospector's daughter Mary Roberts. Mary works for her cruel guardians, Brushwood Gulch saloon owner Mickey Finn and his saloon-singer wife, Lola Marcel. Stan and Ollie are travelling towards Brushwood Gulch; Stan on foot, leading a mule dragging a travois, on which Ollie lies. As they ford a river, the travois detaches from the mule, leaving Ollie stranded in the water. He starts to wade then completely disappears into a sink hole in the river bottom. They hitch a ride on a stagecoach and attempt to flirt with a woman passenger. Upon arriving in Brushwood Gulch, she complains to her husband, who threatens the pair to leave on the next coach or they'll be leaving in a hearse. At Mickey Finn's saloon a band is performing on the front porch and Stan and Ollie dance to their music. Inside they clumsily reveal their supposedly secret mission to Mickey, including that they have never seen Mary. Mickey has Lola play Mary and hijack the deed. Stan and Ollie then encounter the real Mary and try to retrieve the deed from the Finns, resulting in an extended chase and struggle. The Finns prevail and put the deed in their safe. Ollie is briefly relieved by the arrival of the sheriff only to realise the sheriff is the angry husband who threatened them earlier, who now chases them out of town. Crossing the river, Ollie drops into the sink hole again. Drying Ollie’s clothes the pair resolve to return under cover of darkness to complete their mission. After a series of mishaps they finally make it inside. They force Mickey to open the safe at gunpoint with his own shotgun, and escape with Mary and the deed. Mickey becomes entangled in the gate-grill at the front door. Outside town, the happy trio sing "We're Going to See My Home in Dixie" as they ride away. Once again, fording the river, Ollie falls into a sink hole.
The film's score was composed by Marvin Hatley and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music. The film includes two well-known songs: firstly Macdonald and Carroll's "Trail of the Lonesome Pine", sung by Laurel and Hardy, and secondly J. Leubrie Hill's "At the Ball, That's All", sung by the Avalon Boys and accompanied by Laurel and Hardy performing an extended dance routine, one that they rehearsed endlessly. "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" was released as a single in Britain in 1975, backed by "Honolulu Baby" from Sons of the Desert; it reached number 2 in the British charts.
Way Out West is referenced in The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid when the Sheriff ends up replicating Stan Laurel's thumb fire trick featured in the film.
The opening scene of the biopic Stan & Ollie depicts a shooting of the film, with Laurel and Hardy arriving on the set for one of the dance scenes.
