Thirty years before Arizona achieves statehood, scam artist James Addison Reavis (Vincent Price) cooks up an elaborate scheme to claim the territory as his own. Reavis convinces Mexican immigrant Pepito (Vladimir Sokoloff) that his daughter is the heir to a barony of land granted by Spain, and then departs for years of patient efforts to create a false paper trail. He returns years later to claim the now-grown heir, Sofia (Ellen Drew), as his wife, but will his plan withstand scrutiny?