A senator and a veteran scout lead a band of settlers on an arduous journey across the great plains of 19th-century America. However, they are endangered by Indian reprisals when one of the pioneers accidentally shoots a child. Western, starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Lola Albright, Michael Witney, Richard Widmark and Sally Field in her big-screen debut.

In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.