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.

The Kettles and their fifteen children are about to be evicted from their rundown rustic home when Pa wins the grand prize by coming up with a new tobacco slogan. Birdie Hicks is jealous of the family's new wealth, which includes a completely automated modern home, and accuses Pa of stealing the slogan. Reporter Kim Parker proves Birdie wrong and marries Tom Kettle.

Young Matt Matthews, an Ozark Mountains moonshiner, hates the father he has never seen, who apparently deserted Matt's mother and left her to die. His obsession contributes to the hatred rampant in the mountains. However, the arrival of a stranger, Daniel Howitt, begins to positively affect the mountain people, who learn to shed their hatred under his gentle influence.

Joyce and Fred MacNeil's honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the efforts of politically ambitious assistant DA Marlin, Fred awaits his doom on Death Row, while Joyce works overtime on the outside to clear her husband's name

A New England fisherman's second wife prefers his son.

Newspaper man wanders about and helps older woman save her paper.