A lost team of Buffalo Soldiers and their Captain in the aftermath of the Civil War trek through the Texas desert on an odyssey to retrieve a comrade they had thought to have been dead.
Impending trouble with the sheep herders, who are encroaching on his range, causes Ace Brent, owner of vast California interests, to warn his daughter Barbara to postpone her visit to the ranch. But Barbara is made of sterner stuff, and, following a heated discussion with her admirer, John Wallace, over woman's equality with man in the business world, she declares she will disregard the warning telegram and be at her father's side should trouble come.
A growing number of cattle raids prompts the cattlemen to call on their cattlemen's association president Martin Lethbridge to investigate. Sheep Ranchers are suspected, who led by Gregg Randall blame the cattlemen for increased casualties among the sheep herds. Letherbridge falls in love with Randall's daughter, Dolly, and eventually exposes Blunt Vanier as the cause of the conflict.
Tracy Powell, an Indiana farmer, gets the gold fever and heads for Stockton, California in 1849. There, he abandons his first partner, Bert Killian, and teams up with Sam Wilkins, a claim jumper employed by Willis Haver. Six years later, Powell returns to Indiana and his sweetheart, Julie. They marry and he tries farming again but, on the night their son is born, he takes off again searching for gold. This time he heads for the hills with an inveterate prospector, Jimmo McCann. A decade later, the two are still hunting for their big strike when McCann is killed in an accident. Powell returns home with news of a big strike but the deserted Julie will have nothing to do with him. His friend Killian will not believe him but Haver, now a banker gives him a small loan and then beats him out of his claim. Many years pass before he comes home, now sixty-years-old, and this time, his wife and son open their home to him. But he vows to go prospecting come next spring.
Red Reagan, and two companions, Brooks and Mathis, lose their way while on a prospecting trip in the mountains. Fortunately they come to an Indian camp where they get food and water, and So-Jun-Wah a beauteous Indian maid, shows them the trail to the settlement.
Zeb Macahan, a pioneering westerner, helps move his brother's family to the wild west. They run into several obstacles including the breakout of the Civil War. This sends the father back to fight in the war and leaves the family to move on ahead.
After Jim Blake saves Harve Tarlton's life, they become partners in a gold mining claim. After a while Harve reverts to his outlaw way of life. Everyone but Jim seems to know that Harve is bad but Jim merely thinks he needs a chance to go straight. But Jim's wife Helen has a plan to expose Harve as the outlaw he is.
Telling the story of his early life in flashback, a former prospector (Joel McCrea, with flashback sequences featuring son Jody) explains his brutal massacre of a tribe of Indians. The only survivor (Marie Gahua) agrees to lead him to a secret gold mine.
Chasing a steer across the border a cowboy meets a senorita and stays on making the Mexican Captian jealous. When the Captain plans to have the cowboy killed, the cowboy gets the Captain to agree to a contest between jumping beans. When the cowboy wins he says he will let the senorita decide between the two. But first he rides off to rescue another girl held by the hooded Night Riders and the Captain follows to back him up
A cowboy advertises for a wife. A shop girl in Chicago responds, and he travels there to see her. Once he gets there, however, she changes her mind. Ashamed to return home empty-handled, the cowboy uses a mannequin in a woman's dress to fool his friends into thinking he has a wife.
A young Cullen Baker rides his mule throughout the old west with his father, when bandits attack them, killing his father. Cullen becomes a loner, again riding a mule through the west and getting into trouble wherever he goes. When a soldier shows him the Colt Dragon revolver, a newly invented six shooter, he becomes obsessed with obtaining this gun as a means to empower himself. After murdering two soldiers and taking their revolvers, Cullen proceeds to rob banks and shoot down anyone who dares confront him.
At the height of the 1930's Dust Bowl, a scarecrow must leave his post and find a way to save the only family he's ever known. But facing the outside world proves to be a challenge when your face is a burlap sack.
This movie looks at the last years (not days, as implied in the title) of famous outlaws, Frank and Jesse James. The film opens in 1877 with the brothers trying to settle down after 15 years of thievery. Frank is shown to be a book-loving and family-oriented man, while brother Jesse is a money-hungry womanizer. The movie follows their lives through Jesse's death at the hands of the "rotten little coward" Bob Ford and Frank's death in 1892.