Joe Branch, reputed to be the son of Jesse James, comes riding into Coffeyville Kansas, looking for proof one way or the other regarding the question of who his father was.

Fighting in the Civil War a man accidently kills his friend. Returning to Abilene after the war he finds his former sweetheart about to marry the brother of the man he killed. To pay his debt he not only refuses to win her back but takes the job of Sheriff, a job he doesn't want, when the brother asks him. Still haunted by the killing he refuses to carry a gun. But there is trouble between the ranchers and the farmers and when he finds the brother murdered he straps on a gun and heads after the killer.

At the end of the Civil War, a major shipment of Union gold has been stolen and buried in the desert. Only one man knows the whereabouts of gold and the US Army sends captain Matt Martin to arrest him and come back with the gold. Martin, his prisoner and a handful of men enter Indian territory in search of the precious cargo. The Apaches, outlaws and storms will make it difficult.

With the help of some seedy gangsters, young attorney Steve Keiver makes some quick cash by bending the law, and in the process, he impresses the mobsters so much that they invite him to work for them on a regular basis. But when Police Inspector Matt Duggan realizes that Steve is working as a middleman for the mob, the young lawyer finds himself in a life-threatening situation. In order to clear his name, he must betray the deadly crooks he's been working for.

A crusading politician falls prey to the temptations of power.

A down-and-out student is hired to kill a wealthy woman. When someone else is suspected of the crime, the student taunts police until they realize that they may have to wrong man.