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Emmett Ryker accompanies his good friend, general storekeeper John Conway (Jack Warden), to the train station to meet Rita Boland (Marilyn Erskine), John's fiancee. After taking her to the Hotel, Emmett returns to the Sheriff's office where he opens a threatening note from the Garr brothers: Will (John Milford) and Dink (James Beck). He tells Sheriff Brannon (Harlan Wade) that he had killed the Garr's younger brother and sent the other two to prison some three years before. Emmett meet John and Rita at Rita's hotel room and they have a drink before going to dinner. There is mention of the possibility of children from the forthcoming marriage and Rita looks askance at this prospect and seems distant with John. After dinner, when she is returned to her hotel room, she can not resist drinking the bottle of liquor that John and Emmett had left.

The next morning Emmett finds John out in the country practising with a pistol. He asks Emmett to give him some tips but Emmett tells him to forget about it as he will never need such a skill and would only get killed anyway. He learns that John had met Rita in San Francisco. He had gone to visit a friend at the hospital and Rita was a recovering patient sharing a room with his friend. He had known Rita only a week or so before asking her to marry him. Later in the day John takes Rita to look at a farmhouse he is thinking of buying but she sees a child's swing outside the house and looks distraught and inside gets very upset when a child's doll is found. Even though John would like to buy the house Rita thinks they should live in town at the hotel for now. Emmett finds John in the saloon and the latter admits he is troubled by Rita's actions. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the Garr brothers who make veiled threats and then leave. Emmett retrieves a bag from the station for Rita but when he tries to deliver it finds her drunk. Later John comes to take her to dinner but she will not let him in and passes out drunk in her darkened room.

The next morning Emmett goes out of town to investigate a possible crime and on the way back finds Rita taking out her frustrations by racing along dangerously in a buggy. He tells her John deserves more and that she need to give him love. Rita returns to town and visits John at his store but it starts raining and she evinces a fear of the storm. She tells John that it is time he knew about her. The reason she was in hospital is that she had fallen and hit her head when she was drunk. Six years before she had been out sailing with her husband and two daughters when a storm came up, capsized their boat and she was the only survivor. She says she can't give him love or children because of that but she will marry him if he wants. She will wait at the hotel to hear his decision.

That evening the Garr brothers come gunning for Emmett who is out patrolling the streets. Rita does not think John will come so she goes to the station to catch the train for San Francisco. John decides to go see Rita but as he leaves his shop he bumps into the Garr brothers who recognize him as Emmett's friend. So he will not warn Emmett the Garrs knock John out and leave him in his store. Emmett comes upon Rita at the train station. She turns anxiously when she hears him approach thinking it is John but is deflated when it is not. Emmett tells her from the look of disappointment that he thinks she really does love John but before anything else can be said the Garr brothers start firing at them.

Emmett gets them to stop shooting long enough to let Rita go but the gun battle commences after she leaves. The townspeople hear the shooting but none come to Emmett's aid. However, John awakens, grabs his gun and heads for the shooting. He runs into Rita who tries to stop him going to the gunfight but he must help his friend and starts shooting at Will Garr. He somehow manages to shoot and kill Will but is himself wounded. Emmett kills Dink Garr and runs to his friend and suggests his wound is not serious. Rita arrives and professes to John that she realizes she does love him.