Two tough Kentucky mountaineers join a trading expedition from St. Louis up the Missouri River to trade whisky for furs with the Blackfoot Indians. They soon discover that there is much more than the elements to contend with.
After a band of drunken thugs overruns a small Indian Nation town, killing Reverend Goodnight and raping the women folk, Eula Goodnight enlists the aid of US Marshal Cogburn to hunt them down and bring her father's killers to justice.