Mitch Barrett (Alan Ladd) is a former Confederate States of America soldier emigrating to the West whose wife Ellie (Rachel Stephens) dies in childbirth in a small cattle town in Arizona because of what Mitch sees as the heartlessness of three local men - George Caldwell the hotel keeper (Henry Norell ), Sam Giller the general store owner (John Alexander (actor)) and Ole Olsen the sheriff (Karl Swenson). Unhinged by Ellie's death, he plots to get his revenge by robbing the local bank of $100,000 deposited by a rich cattleman, thus ruining the town.