A former sheriff reluctantly takes up his badge again after the Civil War, but is still traumatised by accidentally killing someone on his own side. Further misery is heaped on him when he discovers the woman he loves believed him dead and married the brother of the man he killed, but he is forced to take a stand against her husband, who is trying to seize other people's land. Western, starring Jock Mahoney, Marthe Hyer, Lyle Bettger and David Janssen.

Jim Trask, former sheriff of Abilene, returns to the town after fighting for the Confederacy to find everyone thought he was dead. His old friend Dave Mosely is now engaged to Trask's former sweetheart and is one of the cattlemen increasingly feuding with the original farmers. Trask is persuaded to take up as sheriff again but there is something about the death of Mosely's brother in the Civil War that is haunting him.