Catherine "Cat" Ballou, who wants to be a schoolteacher, is returning home from boarding school by train to (fictional) Wolf City, Wyoming, to the ranch of her father, Frankie Ballou. On the way, she unwittingly helps accused cattle rustler Clay Boone elude his captor, Sheriff Maledon, when Boone's Uncle Jed, a drunkard disguised as a preacher, distracts the lawman.