In the same year that Gary Cooper won an Oscar for High Noon he also starred in this perfunctory Warner Bros western. Directed with some style by House of Wax's Andre De Toth, this feature still resembles a Randolph Scott programme filler, wherein Cooper instead of Scott rides with a batch of second-string actors to infiltrate a gang. Cooper is a little too old for this kind of lark and the support cast really isn't worthy of him, but there's a certain pleasure to be gained from watching a great star at work.

Major Lex Kearney, dishonourably discharged from the army for cowardice in battle, volunteers to go undercover to try to prevent raids against shipments of horses desperately needed for the Union war effort. Falling in with the gang of jayhawkers and Confederate soldiers who have been conducting the raids, he gradually gains their trust and is put in a position where he can discover who has been giving them secret information revealing the routes of the horse shipments.