Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.
Drifters Tom Williams and Joe Morgan have a chance meeting with the sheriff's daughter and learn that her brother Jim is being held prisoner in Line Hollow by Wolf, who aspires to be the next sheriff.
William Munny is a retired, once-ruthless killer turned gentle widower and hog farmer. To help support his two motherless children, he accepts one last bounty-hunter mission to find the men who brutalized a prostitute.
When the Great Chief's body is placed before the funeral pile by his mourning braves, his sacred blanket is covered over it and a sentinel left to watch that this, his last resting place, is not desecrated.
For Nita Valyez, who is half-Spanish and half-Irish, Carlos represents potential violence and danger, two things to which she is both attracted and repelled.
Miner Dan Stuyvesant finally strikes it rich, but on his way to report his claim, he is shot. When Jack Dedlow, the head of a gang of outlaws, hears this news, he rides to Stuyvesant's cabin intending to secure the claim for himself.
Ranchmen try to play a joke on one of their associates by signing his name to a letter addressed to Sarah Smith, who has advertised in a matrimonial journal.
Ann, a 19-year-old girl who looks much younger, meets a dashing army major on a boat sailing from Liverpool to Bombay, India, and falls in love with him.
Jus' travlin', Bob and his sidekick run into the outlaw Jean Le Roque. A miner has found gold and Le Roque not only wants the gold but also the miner's daughter.
After years of service, the Captain of the Setuckit Life Saving Station on Cape Cod retires, Calvin Homer, the second in command, Calvin Homer expects to be promoted; but the appointment goes instead to Bartlett, a religious fanatic who has been the recipient of a good deal of favorable newspaper publicity.
When Silent Sanderson's brother kills himself over the rejection of a woman, Silent blames Judith Benson and leaves the family homestead to begin a new life in Alaska.