John Wayne is Jacob McCandles, a rough-and-tumble rancher who's estranged from his wife (Maureen O'Hara). But when a cutthroat gang led by Richard Boone kidnaps his grandson, Big Jake gets the call to rescue him. Patrick Wayne (John Wayne's real-life son) and Chris Mitchum (Robert Mitchum's son) play Jake's grown boys, who accompany him on the long trek that can end only one way...
The notorious shootist and womanizer Quirt Evans' horse collapses as he passes a Quaker family's home. Quirt has been wounded and the kindly family takes him in and nurses him back to health against the advice of others. The handsome Evans quickly attracts the affections of their beautiful but sheltered daughter, Penelope. He develops an affection for the family but his troubled past follows him…