Rowdy is tricked into breaking a stallion to pay off a gambling debt by a woman. The horse killed one man and injured others including the daughter of the owner. Rowdy is involved in more than breaking a horse - the break up of a family.

Pete and Quince find young Davey Colby who says Indians killed his father and grandfather and carried off his mother. He is trying to reach his uncle in Eberle. Favor doubts his story. He hasn't heard of any Indians in the neighborhood. The Kimble County Sheriff tells Favor, there are no Colbys in Eberle and no Indians within 100 miles. Favor tells Pete some kids just find it easier to lie. Davey says he ran away from home to find his father, a bounty hunter. Favor tells Pete to take him home to his mother. After a couple of unsuccessful escape attempts, they ride up to Davey's home. The door is locked. Davey knocks. A woman answers and says she's never seen Davey before in her life. Pete says he understands and turns to leave. He gets a rifle leveled at him. Inside is Bodie whose knee was shot by Davey's father Sam. Bodie, Mooney and Harv are lying in wait for Sam to return home.

A dying woman stumbles into the cattle drive. Her husband, a feared gunslinger turned rancher, soon shows up and accuses the drovers of shooting her. Gil and Rowdy fear that their cattle are coming down with a deadly disease, so they turn the herd towards the Ewan and Reese Dangerfield chemical dipping station, on the widowed rancher's recommendation.

When a delusional old man attacks the passing drovers, his daughter-in-law enlists Gil & Rowdy's help with the powerful ex-boxing champ. The Marshal who made the town safe, is now drunk on his own power, enforcing petty rules to keep the tiniest semblance of trouble out of his jurisdiction. Factoring heavily into the situation is that the daughter-in-law is exquisite and widowed.

Rowdy is saved from falling down a well by a woman. Later, the woman's family and friends manage to steal the drovers' horses.

Wishbone, in desperate need of a dentist, finds one in Blanton. Along with Rowdy they both encounter two problems: the doctor is on trial for murder and both of them have been picked to be on the jury. The verdict is the final surprise.

While scouting for a river crossing, Favor meets a hostile smokehouse-owner and his wife.

Desperate for water, Gil's drive is forced into a deadly confrontation between the Paneequa tribe and surveyors, over the Lake of the Haunted Hills. The valley's ghostly winds and geysers are sacred to the tribe, while the U.S. Army survey is headed by a stubborn Indian killer Captain, who orders a Paneequa woman tortured. Gil hopes his drover Tasunka, who left the tribe as a teen, can mediate the dispute with minimal bloodshed, but when Gil finds that the local White settlement Heliotrope is a ghost town due to the dispute, the trail boss tells Rowdy to take over the drive in case he is killed.

Gil shoots and wounds a puma while while out scouting for the cattle drive. The puma escaped and kills the young son of a local rancher's widow. Gil and the guys go on the hunt for the puma along with a friend of the widow (Cesar Romero) who also happens to want to kill Gil because he's jealous of the attention the widow shows Gil.

Pete has been gone two days. Rowdy has been out looking for him. Pete returns and says there is 80 to 100 Cheyenne ahead. Pete jumps Dagget, a man Favor hired Pete says he's a bounty hunter. Another bounty hunter teams up with Dagget. He shows him an $8000 reward for Nancy Curtis a girl captured by the Indians. Someone posts the reward poster on the chuck wagon. Favor checks on twelve missing steers. He meets Manso, Cheyenne chief whose come to pay for them. Manso leaves and is captured by Dagget. Favor has him released. Favor takes an arrow in the shoulder. He is taken to Manso's camp. There is blonde haired, fair skin Winoka. She shows Favor a locket with ""NC"" on it. Favor is determined to return her to her birth family. Manso says she is Cheyenne now.

In the midst of a thunderstorm and despite his men's objections, Mr. Favor hires a man who comes across the camp, blamed for bringing bad luck with him, and one bad break follows another.

Claiming to represent President Diaz of Mexico, Villegro and his men want to take one of Gil's men, the son of their biggest enemy, into custody. As they are in Texas and need all hands to drive their herd, Gil is not in favor of doing so.

Professor Lismore and his daughter Mave have come to Texas from Boston to look for rumored Druid stones. Favor tells Jim Lark, who tried to force his intentions on Mave, to draw his pay in the morning. Lark and two other drovers hear the Professor speak figuratively about the value of finding the stones. The three draw their pay. They kidnap the Professor and Mave. They go about trying to force the Professor to disclose the location of the "treasure".

Favor, Rowdy and drover Lou Paris find themselves in the middle of a smallpox epidemic in Red River Station. The town's doctor wants to vaccinate the populous. The barber/dentist relies on acifidity bags, leeches and herb tea. Favor tries unsuccessfully to get vaccine from the army.

Gil is accused of murder, but is allowed to continue the cattle drive after Rowdy is deputized to guard him. Meanwhile, the real killers, three outlaws, scheme to steal church funds from a priest befriended by Gil and Rowdy.

The drovers find a painter from back East on their way, whose paintings help the men of a former Army Major map the town in attempt to bust him out of jail. Mr. Favor gets in the way to help justice be served and stop future bloodshed.

Wishbone buries his brother "alive" to keep Kiowas from killing him for romancing the stony chief's wife. T.J. turns out to be a comical embarrassment: a pot fixer whose customers fight to scalp him for his shoddy tinking, which is his ploy for woman chasing. For years, trail cook Wishy's fellow drovers heard the cook laud his misplaced little brother's prowess as a warrior, politician, you name it. But angering the Kiowa at the moment is deadly serious, because the tribe is divided over signing a treaty. Young braves oppose old Chief Wankawa inking the doc.

An embittered mustanger known by Gil Favor in his younger days blocks the pass that the herd needs to use to reach a river ford where they can cross safely. The mustanger is haunted by a fierce stallion who killed his son, once a friend of Favor.

An outlaw usurps a dead man's identity and he is heading for the next town along with the drovers. When Rowdy gets in the middle of his business he finds himself in serious trouble and it is up to Mr. Favor to figure out a way of saving him.

A posse gives up looking for two outlaws, Vance and his partner. They come upon the body of a lawyer ambushed by indians. Vance decides to pose as Jonathan Williams attorney at law.

Horse thieves who have victimized Comanches also strike the drive's ramuda. Gil sends a group headed by Pete and Rowdy out to purchase replacement mounts. They encounter a preacher on his way to officiate a christening at the Lacey ranch, where he says horses are for sale. The drovers find their own stolen horses corralled there. So do the Comanches, who put the ranch under siege.

It looks like the drovers are moving smoothly until they find a very slow moving wagon on their way, allegedly carrying champagne. As it turns out it was not only champagne and everyone could be in danger.

A woman gets off the stage expecting to meet her husband. But she was let off in the middle of nowhere, a good 30 miles from her home. Pete decides to help her get there but when they arrive, she recognizes everyone except her husband.

When the son of a gypsy queen is murdered, she insists one of the drovers did it and demands the killer be found and turned over. Gil rebuffs her, prompting the old woman to predict trouble for the drive, which does start to happen.

The owner of a remote trading post and his wife are coerced into backing a rustler's scheme to get the drovers drunk, swipe the herd and sell the beeves to hide skinners.