Mine owner William Sharon keeps having his gold shipments held up by a gang of bandits. Sharon hires banker Charles Crocker, who happens to have connections in the Central Pacific Railroad, to build a spur line from Virginia City to Carson City, so that the gold can be shipped by railroad. Silent Jeff Kincaid is the railroad engineer. However there is opposition to the railroad, chiefly from another mine owner, Big Jack Davis.

A cowboy must clear himself of a murder he did not commit.

At a desolate relay station in the west, a stagecoach attendant and a stranded woman traveller are held captive by a band of escaped convicts.

Long-missing Bill Cardew returns to find his wife Vicky remarried...and in no hurry to settle for just one husband.

Lin McAdam rides into town on the trail of Dutch Henry Brown, only to find himself in a shooting competition against him. McAdam wins the prize, a one-in-a-thousand Winchester rifle, but Dutch steals it and leaves town. McAdam follows, intent on settling his old quarrel, while the rifle keeps changing hands and touching a number of lives.

A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.