A very young girl goes to deliver lunch to the cowboys who have stayed behind on the plains. She climbs into a wagon. Along the way, the wagon is spotted by a man on horseback. The girl arrives and kisses her father, to whom she gives the lunch. Eventually, the child is kidnapped, and a ransom of 25,000 pounds is demanded. A ten-year-old boy offers to go and try to save the girl.
A very young girl goes to deliver lunch to the cowboys who have stayed behind on the plains. She climbs into a wagon. Along the way, the wagon is spotted by a man on horseback. The girl arrives and kisses her father, to whom she gives the lunch. Eventually, the child is kidnapped, and a ransom of 25,000 pounds is demanded. A ten-year-old boy offers to go and try to save the girl.
A cattle-vs.-sheepman feud loses Connie Dickason her fiance, but gains her his ranch, which she determines to run alone in opposition to Frank Ivey, "boss" of the valley, whom her father Ben wanted her to marry. She hires recovering alcoholic Dave Nash as foreman and a crew of Ivey's enemies. Ivey fights back with violence and destruction, but Dave is determined to counter him legally... a feeling not shared by his associates. Connie's boast that, as a woman, she doesn't need guns proves justified, but plenty of gunplay results.
When a handful of settlers survive an Apache attack on their wagon train they must put their lives into the hands of Comanche Todd, a white man who has lived with the Comanches most of his life and is wanted for the murder of three men.
Jake Remy leads a gang of outlaw cutthroats making their escape toward Mexico from a successful robbery. Barring their way is a river--crossable only by means of a ferry barge. The barge operator, Travis, refuses to be bullied into providing transport for the gang and escapes across river with most of the local populace--leaving Remy and his gang behind, desperately seeking a way across. A river-wide stand-off begins between the gang and the townspeople, both groups of which have left people on the wrong side of the river.
A man and his partner arrive at a small Western town to kill its most powerful man because the former blames him for his wife's death.
During the war for Texas independence, one man leaves the Alamo before the end (chosen by lot to help others' families) but is too late to accomplish his mission, and is branded a coward. Since he cannot now expose a gang of turncoats, he infiltrates them instead. Can he save a wagon train of refugees from Wade's Guerillas?
A group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. But when Billy takes their authority too far, they become the hunted.
Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins are long-time cowhands, working whatever ranch work comes their way, but "nothing they can't do from a horse." Their lives are divided between months on the range and the occasional trip into town. Monte has a long-term relationship with prostitute Martine Bernard, while Chet has fallen under the spell of the widow who owns the hardware store. Camaraderie and competition with the other cowboys fill their days, until one of the hands, Shorty Austin, loses his job and gets involved in rustling and killing. Then Monte and Chet find that their lives on the range are inexorably redirected.
Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."