The story takes place in Kansas, just after the Civil War. Wild Bill Hickok is summoned from Dodge City to Abilene, there to neutralize a crooked political machine. Hickok is aided every step of the way by Tex Rawlings, a seemingly harmless drifter who is appointed sheriff after proving his prowess with his six-guns.
Retired wealthy sea captain Jim McKay arrives in the Old West, where he becomes embroiled in a feud between his future father-in-law, Major Terrill, and the rough and lawless Hannasseys over a valuable patch of land.
One man wants to control all the land in the state to graze all his cattle. His band of outlaws are raiding ranchers and homesteaders, trying to drive them out. Rocky and Fuzzy are brought in to help stop the raiders and keep the land for the small ranchers and homesteaders.
Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.
Sharpshooter Calamity Jane takes it upon herself to recruit a famous actress and bring her back to the local saloon, but jealousy soon gets in the way.
When his cattlemen abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his cowboys in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage, however, neither he nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves is stalking them.
Marshall Dan Mitchell, who is the law in Abilene, has the job of keeping peace between two groups. For a long time, the town had been divided, with the cattlemen and cowboys having one end of town to themselves, while townspeople occupied the other end. Mitchell liked it this way, it made things easier for him, and kept problems from arising between the two factions. However…
During the Klondike Gold Rush, a misanthropic cattle driver and his talkative elderly partner run afoul of the law in Alaska and are forced to work for a saloon owner to take her supplies into a newly booming but lawless Candian town.
A former gunslinger is forced to take up arms again when he and his cattle crew are threatened by a corrupt lawman.
Following the Civil War, headstrong rancher Thomas Dunson decides to lead a perilous cattle drive from Texas to Missouri. During the exhausting journey, his persistence becomes tyrannical in the eyes of Matthew Garth, his adopted son and protégé.