Outlaws attack the wagon train returning from Abilene Kansas to Oro Grande, Texas with proceeds of the cattle sales made since the end of the Civil War. Texas Rangers arrive at the scene to find only one survivor. Ranger Captain John Coe (Jack Ingram) decides to go to Austin for a full company of Rangers but cattle-buyer Bill Ruphy (Lee Shumway) dissuades him, and Coe makes the request by letter. Pat Barrett (Bill Elliott) discloses himself as a U.S. Marshal posing as a Kansas outlaw named Bob Cantrell. Buck Bowery (Slim Whittaker) see the supposed Cantrell escape from Captain Coe and invites him to join his band of guerrillas and takes him to the Crittenden Ranch where the band hold Dad Crittenden (Budd Buster) and his daughter Virginia (Dorothy Gulliver) and son Bud (David Sharpe) as prisoners. Pat gives gang-member Pike (Charles King) a thrashing when he annoys Virginia , and the revenge-seeking bully follows the supposed Bob Crantrell to Coe's office. More complications arise when Buck finds an old Kansas newspaper reporting the hanging of Bob Cantrell.
—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>