Rusty Sabin was a child when Cheyenne Indians raided the Sabin homestead and killed his mother. Just before she died, she put a rawhide cord with a green scabbard around his neck. Raised by Spotted Antelope and Bitter Root, Rusty, now known as Red Hawk, refuses the compulsory and brutal initiation into the tribe when he is 15. Abandoned as dead by his Cheyenne family, Red Hawk takes the advice of a white trader and rides to Witherell, the nearest settlement of whites.

John Scovil had brought his daughter out west to snap her out of her lethargy, but nothing he did could stir her interest in the wild surroundings. Deciding a staged kidnapping might awaken her spirit, he hires a handsome young rogue to abduct her to the mountains. But they both get more than they bargained for when his pretty daughter's spirit wakes up indeed - with a thirst for action and adventure.

Alfred Larribee is sent by his father to live with his cousin’s family in the West. Larribee proves to be lazy and shiftless…spending most of his time in town…drinking and gambling…even cheating at cards. What changes all this is the appearance of Sky Blue…a magnificent stallion that has never been ridden. Dan Gurry is the owner and hopes to find a cowboy who can ride Sky Blue…but the first one to try is seriously injured. After that no one is willing to volunteer to try again except Larribee.

When Lorrimer Weldon rode into San Trinidad, he found he immediately had two job offers: the outlaw Roger Cunningham wants Weldon to join his smuggling operation as a hired gun, and Dr. Henry Watts wants to hire Weldon's gun as well, but as muscle to protect a patient dying of consumption, the beautiful Helen O'Mallock. Weldon finds Watts' proposition far more attractive, so he accepts the offer, knowing that Cunningham will resent the decision.

It's 1871 in the contented Mormon town of Cottonwoods, Utah, and Elder Tull wants to marry wealthy rancher Jane Withersteen so desperately that he's willing to use the water supply - the precious lifeblood of the land - to force her hand. But that was before a mysterious, lone gunman called Lassiter showed up...