Stubblefield is the heir of an old Montana family; Ike, a Wisonsin native, came west to marry the daughter of another rancher. As sheriff, Ike is something of an outsider, caught between one rancher's rights and the larger law of the community. His attempt to help backfires, and Ike is troubled to learn that Chas is gathering support in town among people who believe that a man's land and property are his to use as he chooses. But Ike does not know that the rancher is planning revenge, a plot that will target Ike's wife Pattiann -- a woman with a past her husband does not fully understand, a past in which Chas Stubblefield figured intimately.