Bill Longley arrives in a small Texas town with the intension of helping Les Torbit, an old army buddy, in his range war with Kyle Richards' outfit. Longley soon learns that Torbit is held for accidentally shooting Richards' teen-aged daughter, but a potential lynch mob is getting liquored up to hang the prisoner if the girl dies.

Professional gambler Jake Romer wins big in a poker game, taking thousands of dollars in IOUs from Jim Caldwell, an ex-lawman, who had planned to buy cattle for his ranch in Texas. Convinced he's been cheated, Caldwell and his men hold-up the Cattleman Association. Although Bill Longley hates Romer and rode with Caldwell years ago, he agrees to join the posse to capture his old friend.

Hot-headed Johnny Kaler, embarrassed that he's been caught cheating at cards, provokes Bill Longley into a barroom brawl and is quickly thrashed. Later in the evening Johnny tries to kill Bill, but dies when an unknown assailant shoots him in the back from the shadows. Johnny's big brother Mike still blames Longley for the shooting and calls him out for a showdown.

Bill Longley meets an old, but beautiful, friend who currently owns the local saloon and is happy to renew her acquaintance. This angers the local land baron, who has a proprietary interest in the young lady, and he tries to goad his college-educated son into killing Longley to earn the first notch on his gun.

Orin and Ruth McKnight's May/December romance hits a rough spot when Bill Longley returns from a cattle drive with news that Orin's son from his first marriage died driving off rustlers. To make matters worse, Ruth's old beau has traveled all the way from Ohio to bring his former girlfriend home.

While sleeping by his campsite, Bill finds a young boy who is so frightened that he can't talk. Bill is confronted by two henchmen who try to force Bill to turn the boy over to them. Bill learns that the lad's father had a gold mine and just struck it rich; he reasons that the miner had been killed by the henchmen and the only witness to the crime is the boy.