In this pilot episode, Dan Troop takes over in Laramie after the previous marshal is killed. His first job is to bring in the marshal's killer, and in the process he gains a fine deputy in Johnny McKay. (This is also the first of several episodes where veteran actors Jack Elam and Lee Van Cleef appeared.)

In a tribute to High Noon, a man comes into town, looking for a fight. When he kills a man, he is arrested. Johnny gets lessons from Dan on how to handle a prisoner

Dan and Johnny try to capture a prisoner, who tells Johnny that he is his father. Dan is shocked when Johnny turns in his badge, saying he has bad blood and won't make a good lawman. At the end, Dan and Johnny have a gunfight with the prisoner, and Johnny takes back his job.

While Dan and Johnny are taking a killer to be hanged and a doctor to prison to serve a term, they come upon a stranded stagecoach with various passengers who need help. While helping the passengers, a conflict ensues, which ends with new light being brought out in the Doctor's case.

Bob Ford, who shot Jesse James in the back, comes to Laramie, where Dan and Johnny must protect him from mob mentality in some who feel Jesse James was a hero (although Dan seems to think he was a 'two-bit' killer). The citizens of Laramie join in until Dan talks them out of it.

A new saloon is opened in Laramie by Kate Wilson, who has had several scrapes with the law, but is always acquitted by the all-male jurors due to serious flirting on her part. When the same thing happens in Laramie, Dan pulls out all the stops, bringing in an ex-beau of hers doing time for one of her former crimes, and an all-woman jury to de-rail her.

Fallon, a ruthless bounty hunter, brings in a body of a wanted man and collects the reward from Dan, who knew him elsewhere and doesn't like him. After being told to leave town, Fallon shows Dan and Johnny a picture of the next man on his 'hit list'. Johnny knows him and tries to protect him from the killer, but is injured in the process. Finally, Dan must step in to stop another killing by Fallon.

Johnny puts his badge on the line when he bets Dan that his life long friend, Bill Anderson, is a good guy - and the only one in his family. Bill has trouble through some misunderstandings, and his brother gets out of prison at just the right time to really stir things up, but Johnny remains loyal to him throughout.

Luke Saint is a old codger who has a fast draw for a son named Matt. Matt has a reputation, which Luke likes to feed. On the way into Laramie, Matt is ambushed, shot and told he will never shoot again. His pa continues to cause trouble, thinking Matt will avenge him. When he realizes he can't, he goes off and gets Matt's son, Mark, also a crack shot, to get retribution. But Mark is only after Matt.

A Chinese girl is the only one willing to testify after her husband is killed by a couple of men extorting money from the Chinese mine workers outside of town. Although the two men and their boss try to foment hatred and prejudice toward the Chinese who work so hard there, in the end, justice prevails.

Upset that Dan refuses to recind a 10 p.m. curfew he's put on all the saloons in town, the three saloon owners draw straws to see who gets the 'short straw'. That man is the one who is supposed to kill Marshall Troop. Instead, he hires a killer whom Dan knows and recognizes in the cafe. The rest of the show is spent trying to figure out who he's there to kill - and who paid him to do it.

When Johnny McKay's old sweetheart comes to town, she is followed by her lover who goads Johnny into a gunfight. Johnny kills him, but the man's gun is missing when Johnny returns with Dan Troop. Troop must place Johnny under arrest for murder.

Dan's pleased to hear his old mentor is in town, but he and Johnny are disappointed to find out he's there to help the Cattleman's Association to run off homesteaders, a problem Dan had just been dealing with. Events lead to a show-down between the two old friends, with a predictable outcome.

Rene LeBeau is a half-breed Indian woman who lives on a ranch with her Sioux mother after her father dies, and the cattlemen in the area are trying to run her off. Intolerance causes a host of problems for the woman, but especially a group who keep running off her help. One of the cattlemen's employees, however, disagrees with the treatment, and is shot for it. Dan must fight the small group of hate mongerers as well as one who secretly lusts after Rene.

Jack McCall, who murdered Wild Bill Hickok, ends up in Laramie, holed up in Johnny's ailing 'Uncle' Jess' cabin. When Johnny shows up with the doctor, they are held captive. Then Johnny is sent to town for provisions so the killer can make his escape, and a suspicious Dan Troop follows at a distance. In the end, everything is resolved.

While going to arrest two men for murder, Dan is mauled by a bear. A woman saves him and takes him to her cabin, but he doesn't know she's the sister of one of the wanted men. She nurses him, even though she knows he's a lawman because of his badge, which she saw and threw away. Then her brother and his partner come back, and emotions run high. In the end, the situation is resolved, though not as Dan would have liked.

A wounded Ben Greene is accused of stealing cattle. He insists that he bought them legally, and his brand release is at his cabin. The men who accuse him are unsavory characters that both Johnny and Dan seem to distrust. Several of the players in this episode begin journeys in search of witnesses and proof, ending up, of course, with justice prevailing.

Ben Steed is a soldier who wants to be a writer. His father, an army colonel, wants him to stay in the army. The son leaves, but not with the intent to desert as much as to get away from the situation. Complicating matters is the fact that he and his girlfriend, whom his father dislikes, have secretly gotten married, and also a troublemaker trying to get revenge on the Colonel.

The buffalo hunters, led by Tom Cardigan, are persecuting little Billy Bright in the saloon because he used to be married to a Shoshone Indian. The Shoshone are on the warpath because Cardigan killed the chief's brother. Troop stops them and then lets Bright go, but then he learns that the buffalo men hung Bright outside of town. He goes to try to stop a war, and the Indians attack him and the buffalo hunters.

Reformed gunfighter Kurt Monroe comes into Laramie to meet his fiancee, Lucy, on the stage. But when the stage comes in without her, his resolve to stay on the straight and narrow is put to the test.

Big Hat Anderson and Lily Keats are married, and Frank Tate, the newspaper editor, is given the grooms 'big hat' to wear. As he leaves the saloon, he is shot and killed. Dan must find the killer, and starts with former loves of the bride. Frank Tate was a regular in the cast, as the editor who respected and worked with Dan and Johnny. His niece, Julie, comes in this episode to take over his job at the paper.

Hans is a chef wanting to open up his own restaurant, but the Youngs keep him bound to a contract they have with him. Dan helps him get out of it in an unusual (but legal) way, in a show played for laughs, one of the lighter episodes.

A posse is formed to find a suspected murderer, and a gunslinger is included in the posse. The other citizens object, but he turns out to be the only one willing to help Dan protect the suspect once they find him. The suspect's wife, meanwhile, makes a confession to Johnny that he must tell Dan Troop before it's too late.

Jamie was left with the Welches to raise after his father, Jack Rollins, went to prison. Jack is out, and back to reclaim his son.

A military man has a breakdown and finally reveals the truth about a war battle: he let people believe he had been a hero, when instead he was court-martialed for deserting his men.