En route to California to prospect for gold, ex-sheriff Hooker (Gary Cooper), professional gambler Fiske (Richard Widmark), and bounty hunter Luke Daly (Cameron Mitchell) are forced to stop over in a tiny Mexican village by engine trouble on the ship they are taking. A desperate Leah Fuller (Susan Hayward) hires the three men and local Vicente Madariaga, to rescue her husband, John ( Hugh Marlowe), who is pinned under debris from a gold mine cave-in in hostile Apache territory.