On orders from Territorial Governor Gosper Wyatt Earp heads south to make peace when he learns that Old Man Clanton has sent his men into Mexico to rob the silver trains and steal the cattle of wealthy Mexican rancher Don Sebastian.
A ranch owner wants the man his daughter wants to marry to be his foreman but the man wants everyone to know he earned it. He goes to Dodge City where he finds himself in in a gunfight and under pressure from the other hands on the ranch.
Brash eighteen year old Jimmy Craig arrives in Dodge City planning to be a deputy. However, he introduces himself to the town by trying to pick a gunfight with a man in a group teasing him about his age. Earp is insure how to handle him.
A stagecoach holdup orchestrated by Johnny Ringo and Curly Bill Brocius gives Wyatt Earp the opportunity he's been waiting for--a chance to get the rival factions in the Clanton gang to turn on each other instead of the law.
Wyatt arrests and jails the McLowery brothers for mail robbery. Soon afterwards, however, he is enraged to learn that, because the McLowerys work for Old Man Clanton, they've been released by Sheriff Behan, who's on Clanton's payroll.
