Sam Whiskey (Burt Reynolds), an adventurer and rogue in the Old West, is seduced by widow Laura Breckenridge (Angie Dickinson) into promising to retrieve $250,000 in gold bars from a riverboat that sank in Colorado's Platte River. The gold had been stolen by Laura's late husband from the Denver Mint and replaced by plated lead fakes. She offers Sam $20,000 to recover and return it before the theft is discovered and her family name is ruined. Sam enlists the help of Jedidiah Hooker (Ossie Davis), a local blacksmith, and O. W. Bandy (Clint Walker), an Army friend turned inventor, offering them shares of the reward.