Vicious gangster Vincent Canelli pulls off a daring prison escape just moments before going to the electric chair, taking with him Peter Manning – a bank robber and cop killer who was to die right after him. Taking several hostages along, they try to get their hands on the loot from Manning’s robbery to finance their escape from the country.

Jim "Tex" Wall, searching for the last of the three men who raped and killed his wife, joins a gang of cattle rustlers led by Hank Hays. Both Hays' outlaws and a rival gang headed by Heesman, have been hired as ranch hands by "Bull" Herrick, a cripple who owns a large cattle ranch and wants to get his large herd to market. He theorizes that the two gangs will be kept busy watching each other and neither will rustle his cattle. Helen has little faith in her brother's contrived plan, and hates and distrusts both groups. She begins to soften toward Jim, but abruptly changes when she sees a reward poster which says he has killed two men.