Plot

A former sheriff blames himself for his wife's death during a Wells Fargo robbery and vows to track down and kill the seven men responsible.

Ex-sheriff Ben Stride tracks the seven men who held up a Wells Fargo office and killed his wife. Stride is tormented by the fact that his own failure to keep his job was the reason his wife was working in the express office, so he is partly responsible for her death. Stride encounters a married couple heading west for California and helps them; along the way they are joined by two ne'er-do-wells, Masters and Clete, who know that Stride is after the express-office robbers. They plan to let Stride lead them to the bandits, then make away with the loot themselves. But they aren't the only ones carrying a secret.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

A former sheriff, haunted by the loss of his wife in a Wells Fargo robbery, hunts for the seven men responsible for her death. Along the way, he assists a couple traveling west from Kansas City to California, and is forced to deal with another former outlaw he had once sent to prison.—scgary66

A lone cowboy, Ben Stride (Randolph Scott) in the driving rain walks into a camp where two men sit around a fire. He complains that his horse was eaten by Chirakawa Indians as he recounts the story of a robbery of a Wells Fargo station and a killing by seven gunmen back in Silver Springs where he was sheriff. When one of the two men asks if he has found any of the culprits Stride looks at them and says that he has found two as he immediately dispatches the cowboys. As Stride continues to track down the other men responsible for the robbery and killing, he encounters John Greer (Walter Reed) and his wife in a wagon heading for Flora Vista where the criminals are believed to have fled. Stride helps the couple out and accompanies them for a while when they encounter Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) and his partner who are aware of the robbery and killing, and it comes out that it was Stride's wife who was killed by the criminals. Masters is not one of the criminals Strides seeks but someone who has been jailed by Stride in the past and the former sheriff views him suspiciously. It becomes clear that as they group approaches their destination Stride will have to have to shoot it out with the bad men who have killed his wife, and Masters, although not responsible for any crime thus far states clearly to Stride that he intends to obtain the Wells Fargo money for himself but as they near Flora Vista where the crooks are holed up an interesting detail comes out that links John Greer and his wife to Stride's fate.