Southerner Tom Rumford was sent up north to be raised by relatives who happen to be Quakers. As a result, he returns home a passive, peace-loving young man, completely out of place in an area where men kill over issues of honor.

Inventor John Turbin vows vengeance when "Iron Man" Moore, a wealthy iron industrialist, steals his plans. Poverty and disappointment make him a derelict, but he forgives his enemy and finds happiness after Moore's daughters, Hope and Joy, befriend him.

When Buffalo Bill Cody learns that the Union Pacific railroad is making its way through Kansas, he and other heroes of the Wild West join forces to build a town along the route.

A romantic rivalry among members of a secret society becomes even more tense when one of the men is assigned to carry out an assassination.