Duke Fergus falls for Ann 'Flaxen' Tarry in the Barbary Coast in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He loses money to crooked gambler Boss Tito Morell, goes home, learns to gamble, and returns. After he makes a fortune, he opens his own place with Flaxen as the entertainer; but the 1906 quake destroys his place.

Shadrach Jones, ex-Texas State Policeman, has the ruthless determination to find and kill the man who shot his brother in the back and stole the money with which he was to buy a ranch for the two of them. At the saloon-hotel run by Adelaide, Shadrach is convinced that one of the cowhands on the Captain McKellar cattle drive to Montana is his man. He takes the job of trail-herd boss to find the killer. McKellar preaches to Jones that he should forget revenge and let the law of retribution take care of the killer. Shadrach's hard driving of the men and his hunt for the killer makes him bitterly hated, and his retribution quest ends in a manner he did not anticipated.

Chester Wooley and Duke Egan are travelling salesmen who make a stopover in Wagon Gap, Montana while enroute to California. During the stopover, a notorious criminal is murdered, and the two are charged with the crime.

Buck Peters arranges for Hoppy, California, Johnny and other cowboys to go to the aid of friends whose cattle are being rustled. Hoppy and California locate the rustlers' hideout and join the gang by posing as outlaws themselves, but must find a way to let the rest of the posse know where they are.

A peace-loving man named Ben Kane takes a job as deputy marshal of Lords, in the old West. Kane is no lawman, but he accepts the badge because he has an old score to settle with the town's chief trouble-maker. Once on the job, Kane must also deal with a young sharpshooter named Billy Young and a sharp and sassy saloon dancer, Lily.

A bandit disguises himself as an officer in an attempt to woo a saloon singer.

When his best friend dies of an heart attack due to permanent stress at work, the Japanese businessman Yutaka Soto quits and fulfills himself a dream: he buys a ranch in Montana to live on. However the ranch turns out to be due for demolition and the welcome by the people is less than friendly: Hotel owner Cord Wingate wanted the ranch himself and now sabotages Yutaka. Only veterinarian Jessy and an old Cowboy help him. -- Tom Zoerner

On a train trip out west to become a mail-order bride, Susan Bradley meets a cheery crew of young women traveling out to open a "Harvey House" restaurant at a remote whistle-stop.

A widowed teacher in a 1870s Montana mining camp searches for her missing son, but when he returns, he has been monstrously changed by unknown forces.

On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival, rallies the townsfolk to take revenge on Vienna's saloon – even without proof of her wrongdoing.

Two deputies go undercover to save a scientist from his evil kidnappers.

When his cattlemen abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his cowboys in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage, however, neither he nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves is stalking them.