Eleven year old Walter Hacks is a farm boy in 1952. Between milking cows, haying fields and working on farm equipment he finds he has to grow up faster than he should have to. His love of western movies and his imagination take him on adventures where he meets the many interesting neighbors in his seemingly quiet hometown.
When Reverend Robert Henley and his sister Faith arrive in the town of Hell's Hinges, saloon owner Silk Miller and his cohorts sense danger to their evil ways. They hire gunman Blaze Tracy to run the minister out of town. But Blaze finds something in Faith Henley that turns him around, and soon Silk Miller and his compadres have Blaze to deal with.
There are many wonderful and dangerous legends about Cougar Canyon, a sacred Navajo terrain. Two young boys must face the legends and dangers when they go to rescue a lost goat.
A gang of landgrabbers, led by Mexican bandit Manuel, terrorizes the small town of Landford City. The sheriff asks the army for help, which orders Captain Mike Jackson to see what is going on in his old home town and also search for a government agent who has disappeared in that area. Jackson immediately finds himself in the middle of fistfights and shoot-outs with the bandits, who not only have a tight grip on the local farmers but also force Mary, the woman Jackson once intended to marry, to work as a saloon girl.
Broncho Billy, a dangerous character, is captured. On the way to jail, the sheriff stops at Evelyn's house for something to eat. Broncho Billy becomes infatuated with Evelyn and attempts to talk to her, but the men prevent it. On the day of the trial. Broncho Billy, in a clever manner, gets the sheriff's gun and, although handcuffed, holds up the whole courtroom.
Chief Standing Rock's tribe has a treaty protecting their fishing grounds, but a canning corporation is violating the treaty through intimidation and force. The tribe is divided as to how to handle the threat. Standing Rock's son, Braveheart, is sent to college to study law so that he can protect their rights, but others in the tribe, led by the hot-tempered Ki-Yote, want to provoke a more violent confrontation.
A posse, hunting the assailant of Denton's Partner, captures Steve Carlisle (Charles Starrett), who identifies himself as a mineralogist sent to check the area for quartz for radio parts. Calling at the Denton ranch, Steve hires Cannonball Mullins (Dub Taylor), who has just been fired by Jane Fielding (Vi Athens), Denton's ward. Steve learns that she wants to sell the ranch to the Empire Syndicate. Paul Edwards (Lloyd Bridges), syndicate representative, plans to convert the ranch into a swank hotel-gambling operation. At a party which Jane gives for Edwards, Hiram Denton (William Gould), is murdered and Steve is accused. He and Cannonball escape before the sheriff can take them into custody, and in searching for evidence find that Jane and Edwards are married and have done the killings in order to gain the ranch.
When mild-mannered teacher Billy Ray Smith (Anthony Edwards) vows to bring a student's kidnapper to justice, he needs a bit of help. Lacking any cowboy skills of his own, he signs on a speedy gunslinger (Joe Pantoliano) and a no-nonsense cowboy (Louis Gossett Jr.) to help. Now, Smith may just have a chance at capturing his man: the merciless bandit El Diablo (Robert Beltran).
A kid with a wild imagination overhears the plan of some bandits to hold up a bank. Together with a gang of other kids, he carries out the plan before the adults and when they try to get the gold back, the kid sets up a trap for them with the Sheriff.
With the Government Remount Service unable to meet it's quota of horses, Marshal Fred Martin arrives to try and find the rustlers. Apparently just a singing cowhand dressed in white, he becomes the masked Two Gun Troubador dressed in black when he goes after the outlaws. He quickly learns Tex Walters is the leader of the gang but he must find out who is the big boss that gives Walters his orders.
Groups of desperate travelers journey together throughout the Southwest and soon find trouble when they all get gold fever. The action and drama are heightened when they discover gold…on an Indian burial ground!
The rancher Jeff Bransford returns to his ancestral acres and finds them heavily mortgaged and about to be foreclosed and is defended by hired men with guns.