As his first case after graduating from an east coast law school, Andrew Coyle travels west to defend a rancher accused of murdering a miner. Public opinion and all the circumstantial evidence are against the accused and his tenderfoot lawyer. Coyle determines that he must find the real killer in order to prove his client's innocence. But the task proves daunting and he is shot at on two different occasions, nearly burnt up in a cabin fire, and beat up in a barroom brawl. Along the way, Coyle meets the haberdasher's daughter, and a rocky romance ensues. Sensing that he is losing the case in the courtroom, Coyle turns to a desperate inspiration that is his only chance-using technology that is new in the 1890s. Will his scheme be enough to save his client from hanging?