During the Civil War, in Wyoming, horse dealers Joan Britton (Faith Domergue) and Stephen Cook (Lyle Bettger) are competing to supply the Union Army with horses. A Cherokee, Stan Watie, is in the area to stir up the Sioux against the Union just as Cook decides to steal a herd of Sioux horses. Ex-army doctor Jonathan Westgate (Jeff Chandler), opposes Cook’s unscrupulous methods as well as being Cook’s rival for the affections of Joan. It seems Westgate is the only one able to prevent a new Indian war.
A marshal tries to bring the son of an old friend, an autocratic cattle baron, to justice for the rape and murder of his wife.
Newspaper magnate, Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Husband-and-wife scientists (Peter Graves, Andrea King) pick up a pie-in-the-sky TV message supposedly from Mars.