A hard-bitten town taming sheriff is devastated when he's forced by law to hang his own son for theft of a gold shipment. Slade is convinced the man is innocent and sets out to prove it even as the hour of execution draws nigh.
The smoking gun in a masked bank robbery comes in the unlikely form of a charcoal pencil held by the drunken sketch artist who witnessed the criminals plotting the robbery and can now capture their faces on paper. Can he complete his drawings before the killers get the drop on him?
Slade serves as bodyguard to primadonna performer Jenny DuPree, who is receiving death threats and a dwindling number of roses from an assassin who bills himself as her "ultimate admirer."
Slade finds himself in possession of the key that three treasure seekers have long sought and will kill to get back. The key promises to unlock the Treasure of the Seven Emeralds of Quetzalcoatl.
An amateur embezzler who glamorizes a life of crime learns a hard lesson when he falls in with a gang of bandits after they free him from Slade's custody during a train robbery.