Wyoming's free range is in peril. The free rangers, led by the Catlin brothers, are accustomed to letting their cattle roam where the grass is green and water easy to come by. When they first spot the barbed wire barricades, blocking the herds' progress to the river, they are incensed. Tempers flare, bullets fly, and soon it's an all-out range war between the cattle barons and the little free-range outfits.

San Saba Lee, foreman of the prosperous Tincup Ranch, finds himself in a tough spot when his boss decides to erect barbed-wire fences on the Tincup spread. He admires the Catlin brothers, and he carries a torch for their beautiful and brave sister Rhoda, but he needs to keep his position as foreman in order to make amends for a past mistake. Lee finds himself torn between his heart and his sense of duty, desperate to forge an agreement to stop the flying bullets from stealing the life of another one of his friends.