Curley Thompson purchases a ranch near the town of Douglas and is surprised to find that his inherited, happy-go-lucky foreman, Sam Hawkins, can't even ride a horse. Freight owner Hatch Bolton is boss of the town and is out to ruin the local ranchers in order to get their ranches and sell to a Chicago grain combine. After Sheriff Tom Gordon is ambushed, his brother Walter and Alice Rhodes join Curley in his fight against Bolton. A rancher is murdered and Bolton tries to frame Curley, but Gordon lets him out of jail. Curley learns that the murdered man had been trying to tell him that a pair of steer horns over the bar contain the evidence needed against Bolton.