A Tornado in the Saddle

When Cannonball, a cowhand at the Bailey Ranch, discovers some gold nuggets on Bear Ridge, ranch owner Big Bill Bailey, fearing an onslaught of lawlessness caused by greed, asks him to keep his discovery secret. While riding into town to spend their pay, Cannonball, ranch foreman Bob Wilson and his cowhands encounter Lucky Crandall, the new sheriff of Crestview, as he takes control of a runaway stage. After bringing the horses under control and halting the stage, Lucky meets passenger Madge Duncan, who has come to visit her brother Steve. In town, Madge surprises her brother, who has changed his name to Slim Stevens to avoid the law. When Slim and his partner, saloon owner Hutch Dalton, see Cannonball fingering some of his gold nuggets, Slim lures the cowpoke to his room by promising to show him a pearl-handled pistol. Once there, Slim tries to beat the location of the nuggets out of Cannonball. After Slim's strong-arm tactics fail, Dalton offers to trade his silver saddle for a number of the nuggets, and Cannonball rides out of town to retrieve enough gold to meet Dalton's price. When Lucky sees Dalton and Slim following Cannonball, he decides to investigate. At Bear Ridge, Slim and Hutch knock Cannonball out and claim his strike for themselves. When Lucky finds the unconscious Cannonball, he knows that Slim and Hutch have jumped the claim, but is unable to prove it. In town, as Slim packs his bags to join Dalton and the gang at Bear Ridge, Madge begs him to go straight, but he refuses. Meanwhile, at the Bailey ranch, Big Bill, Bob and the boys are riding the range when they see Dalton and his gang crossing the ranch on their way to Bear Ridge. When Bailey orders Dalton off his land, Dalton shoots Joe, one of Bob's cowhands, and gallops away. Determined to prevent Dalton from reaching the gold, Big Bill orders Bob and the boys to blockade the pass leading to the ridge. Soon after, Lucky arrives at the pass, and when Dalton and his men appear, he announces that they are under arrest. A shootout ensues, and in the chaos, Dalton and Slim escape. Lucky then deputizes Bob and his boys, and they ride back to town in search of the outlaws. Slim and Dalton are hiding in Madge's room, and when she discovers them there, Slim convinces his sister that they will be lynched if the law finds them. To protect her brother, Madge allows them to escape and instructs them to hide in a cabin in Antelope Canyon. When Lucky and his deputies track Hutch and Slim to Madge's room, Lucky accuses her of being an accomplice to her brother's crimes. To prove her innocence, Madge directs them to Antelope Canyon. Dalton and Slim have decided not to go to the canyon, however, and watch from a cellar as Lucky and his deputies ride out of town. Planning to lure the posse into an ambush at Dry Gulch, Dalton and Slim allow Cannonball to overhear a discussion about their hideout there. As Cannonball rides to inform Lucky, Dalton and Slim assemble their gang for the ambush. After the posse finds the cabin in Antelope Canyon deserted, Bob angrily throws down his badge and vows revenge, and when Lucky questions the accuracy of Cannonball's information about Dry Gulch, Bob accuses him of trying to protect Madge's brother. The two men fight, and after knocking Bob unconscious, Lucky leads his deputies to Dry Gulch. Realizing that it is a trap, Lucky instructs his men to ride to the ridge above the gulch to scout the landscape. Upon regaining consciousness, Bob gallops into the gulch and is wounded by the waiting outlaws. The gunshot sparks a shootout in which Slim is mortally wounded. Lucky and his deputies then apprehend the outlaws, and before dying, Slim exonerates Madge of any involvement with the gang.