After a stagecoach holdup, Frank Slayton's notorious gang leave Ben Warren for dead and head off with his fiancée. Warren follows, and although none of the townspeople he comes across are prepared to help, he manages to recruit two men who have sworn revenge on the ruthless Slayton.
One is Jess Burgess, gang member who had objected to the kidnapping and was abandoned to die in the desert.
The other is Johash, an Indian with an equally personal grudge---his sister was abducted and murdered by Slayton under identical circumstances.
As the pursuit continues, "Southern Gentleman" Slayton kills three members of his gang for real and/or imagined offenses.
Just short of the Mexican border, his gang is forced to take shelter in a ghost town. Johash's deadly skill with a sniper rifle cuts off the gang's escape route, as three more gang members fatally discover.
Warren places the only available water in an open space and challenges Slayton to come and get it. Slayton is out of ammunition, and Warren eventually wins a lengthy fistfight that begins at the top of a steep hill and slowly and dangerously progresses to ground level.
Warren's experiences during the Civil War had made him basically a pacifist. But thanks to Johash, he is able to keep his own hands basically clean; and he and fiance Jennifer Ballard are re-united.
