After thirteen-year-old Melissa Hendrix runs away from school in Kansas City, she takes a stagecoach back to her ranch near Mesa City, joining fellow passenger Maggie Flynn, who is going to work as a card dealer at Hudson's saloon. Bodie Clark, Melissa's guardian, is being pressured to sell the Hendrix ranch to Hudson and his partner, Blake, but Johnny Mack, with whom Melissa is infatuated, advises Bodie and Melissa not to sell immediately even though Hudson is offering a substantial sum. Unknown to Bodie, Hudson wants the Hendrix ranch because it controls the water-rights for the entire basin, so Blake asks Maggie to use her charms to convince Johnny to let Melissa sell. Later, Maggie sees Johnny building a fence and stages a fall from her horse to attract his attention. Johnny catches the runaway horse and brings it back to Maggie, who suggests to him that the ranch might not be the best place for Melissa and that she should probably be playing with children her own age. Johnny ponders this and, as Maggie leaves, tells her that he is aware that she staged the fall. When Johnny discovers that whoever controls the water-rights on the ranch could ruin all the cattlemen in the basin, he suspects that this is Hudson's motive in wanting to acquire the ranch. While Johnny is in town buying a dress for Melissa, Bodie returns from a trip with a neighboring rancher, Bill Laswell, and they both hear two gunshots coming from the Hendrix ranch. After Bodie finds the body of Steve Anderson, Hudson's lawyer, on the floor of the ranch house, Hudson and Blake enter, accuse Bodie of the murder they have committed, and take him to the sheriff. Hudson orders gunman Curtin to convince Laswell to give false evidence about Bodie. After Maggie, who has been helping Johnny shop, returns with him to the ranch, Melissa arrives with the news of Bodie's arrest. Johnny asks Maggie if she had anything to do with framing Bodie, but she denies it. Curtin and Wright then trick Laswell, who is unaware that Bodie has been arrested, into going to a remote bunkhouse and try to talk him into saying that he did not hear any shots when he was with Bodie. Meanwhile, at the jail, Bodie tells Johnny that Laswell can prove that they were together when the shots were fired, and Johnny leaves to bring in Laswell, but cannot find him. When Bodie's trial gets under way, Laswell is still missing, but as Johnny is testifying that he thinks Laswell has been kidnapped, Laswell suddenly walks into the courtroom. However, Laswell has been coerced by Curtin into perjuring himself. Johnny follows Laswell after he leaves court and rescues him from Curtin. After Maggie tells Hudson that she has decided to return to Kansas City, Curtin reports to Hudson about Laswell, and Maggie overhears them planning to frame Johnny for attempting to break Bodie out of jail. Maggie sends Melissa to find Johnny, then warns the sheriff to get Bodie out of town as he is about to be lynched. However, Bodie, with Maggie's help, fights off the mob from inside the sheriff's office while the cowardly sheriff locks himself in a cell. Curtin places sticks of dynamite at the door so, to save Maggie, Bodie surrenders himself to the mob. Just then, Johnny arrives with Laswell, who admits that he lied and establishes Bodie's innocence. Hudson and Blake attempt to leave town, but Johnny knocks Hudson out in a fistfight while Bodie catches Blake. Later, Maggie stops by the ranch to say goodbye to Melissa and convinces her to return to school.