Law of the Plains

Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins are long-time cowhands, working whatever ranch work comes their way, but "nothing they can't do from a horse." Their lives are divided between months on the range and the occasional trip into town. Monte has a long-term relationship with prostitute Martine Bernard, while Chet has fallen under the spell of the widow who owns the hardware store. Camaraderie and competition with the other cowboys fill their days, until one of the hands, Shorty Austin, loses his job and gets involved in rustling and killing. Then Monte and Chet find that their lives on the range are inexorably redirected.

On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival, rallies the townsfolk to take revenge on Vienna's saloon – even without proof of her wrongdoing.

In the turn-of-the century Texas town of Cottonwood Springs, marshal Frank Patch is an old-style lawman in a town determined to become modern. When he kills drunken Luke Mills in self-defense, the town leaders decide it's time for a change. That ask for Patch's resignation, but he refuses on the basis that the town, on hiring him, had promised him the job for as long as he wanted it. Afraid for the town's future and even more afraid of the fact that Marshal Patch knows all the town's dark secrets, the city fathers decide that old-style violence is the only way to rid themselves of the unwanted lawman.

A cattle-vs.-sheepman feud loses Connie Dickason her fiance, but gains her his ranch, which she determines to run alone in opposition to Frank Ivey, "boss" of the valley, whom her father Ben wanted her to marry. She hires recovering alcoholic Dave Nash as foreman and a crew of Ivey's enemies. Ivey fights back with violence and destruction, but Dave is determined to counter him legally... a feeling not shared by his associates. Connie's boast that, as a woman, she doesn't need guns proves justified, but plenty of gunplay results.

Down-and-out cowhand Jim Garry is asked by his old friend Tate Riling to help mediate a cattle dispute. When Garry arrives, however, it soon becomes clear that Riling has not been entirely forthright. Garry uncovers Riling's plot to dupe local rancher John Lufton out of a fortune. When Lufton's firecracker of a daughter, Amy, gets involved, Garry must choose between his old loyalties and what he knows to be right.

When her husband dies en route to America, Martha Price and her daughter Hilary are left to carry out his dream: the introduction of Hereford cattle into the American West. They enlist Sam "Bulldog" Burnett in their efforts to transport their lone bull, a Hereford named Vindicator, to a breeder in Texas, but the trail is fraught with danger and even Burnett doubts the survival potential of this "rare breed" of cattle.

When Rocklin arrives in a western town he finds that the rancher who hired him as a foreman has been murdered. He is out to solve the murder and thwart the scheming to take the ranch from its rightful owner.

When his cattlemen abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his cowboys in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage, however, neither he nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves is stalking them.

Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.

Two brothers discharged from the Confederate Army join a businessman for a cattle drive from Texas to Montana where they run into raiding Jayhawkers, angry Sioux, rough terrain and bad weather.

Bank robber Graham Dorsey spends a few hours with beautiful widow Amanda Starbuck, in which time his gang takes part in a disastrous holdup. Learning of his comrades' demise, Dorsey goes on the lam. Believing her short-term lover was killed by the law, Amanda decides to make the most of having had a liaison with the supposedly deceased desperado by writing a book about him. Much to his confusion, the still-living Dorsey watches as his name becomes legendary.

When the Scooby gang visits a dude ranch, they discover that it and the nearby town have been haunted by a ghostly cowboy, Dapper Jack, who fires real fire from his fire irons. The mystery only deepens when it’s discovered that the ghost is also the long lost relative of Shaggy Rogers!

Tensions erupt within an Arizona cattle baron's household when his three sons vie for control of the ranch.

A posse discovers a trio of men they suspect of murder and cow theft and are split between handing them over to the law or lynching them on the spot.

A wandering cowboy gets caught up in a range war.

Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.

An aging Texas cattle man who has outlived his time swings into action when outlaws kidnap his grandson.

Aging rancher and self-made man, George Washington McLintock is forced to deal with numerous personal and professional problems. Seemingly everyone wants a piece of his enormous farmstead, including high-ranking government men and nearby Native Americans. As McLintock tries to juggle his various adversaries, his wife—who left him two years previously—suddenly returns. But she isn't interested in George; she wants custody of their daughter.

Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with an old friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah. Together with a fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher that is trying to steal their water.

Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."