Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke is posted on the Texas frontier to defend settlers against depredations of marauding Apaches. Col. Yorke is under considerable stress by a serious shortage of troops of his command. Tension is added when Yorke's son (whom he hasn't seen in fifteen years), Trooper Jeff Yorke, is one of 18 recruits sent to the regiment.
A retired American boxer returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love.
George Washington McLintock, "GW" to friends and foes alike, is a cattle baron and the richest man in the territory. He anxiously awaits the return of his daughter Becky who has been away at school for the last two years. He's also surprised to see that his wife Katherine has also returned. She had left him some years before without really explaining what he done but she does make the point of saying that she's returned to take their daughter back to the State Capitol with her...
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...