Where Trails Divide

The stagecoach from Tucson to Rawhide is chased in the desert by bandits working for Mississippi Blackie Wilson, who runs Rawhide, and the guard and driver are shot. Passenger Tom Allen, who plans to open a law office in Rawhide, where his brother Billy is a Wells Fargo agent, drives the stage to town. Upon their arrival, Nora Hart, another passenger, introduces Tom to her uncle Ed, with whom she plans to run a restaurant, while Tom sees a third passenger, saloon entertainer Bess, embrace Billy. Billy, in cohoots with Blackie, stood to have his gambling debts erased from his share of the take from the stage robbery. He now tells Tom that he and Bess plan to marry, but Tom rebukes him. As citizens discuss the town's deplorable situation, a reverend, who had been on the stage with Tom, suggests that they offer Tom the position of sheriff, but he refuses, prefering to open his law office. Bandits rob the stage again, but find lead washers in the strongbox, which Tom, without Billy's knowledge, put there. Furious, Blackie shoots Tom's lawyer's office shingle, leaving only the letters "yer," whereupon Tom remarks that the town does not need a "lawyer," but needs "law," and accepts the post of sheriff. Tom gives Blackie two hours to close his saloon because town law forbids saloons operating on Sunday and then rides to his cabin. Blackie's men follow, and as they break into the cabin, Tom escapes through the chimney, then jumps on his horse and evades his pursuers by trick riding. At night, Tom goes to the still-open saloon to arrest Blackie, but Billy, drunk and convinced that Tom is after Bess, socks him. Worried that Billy will draw his gun in a fight, Tom backs off. After Blackie and his men plan to kill Billy and blame it on Tom, Blackie tells Billy that Tom plans to send him to the penitentiary so that he could have Bess for himself. Billy pulls a gun on Tom, and as they struggle, Billy is shot. After Tom's two cohorts, undercover men Ike and Happy, pronounce Billy dead, Tom is put on trial. Blackie accuses him of masterminding the stage robberies, but Tom reveals that he is a representative of the National Express Company, and Ike and Happy bring in Billy, whose head had only been creased by the bullet. After Billy testifies that he saw one of Blackie's men shoot him, Blackie escapes with his gang. Tom, Ike and Happy chase them into the desert, where the gang's horses give out. The chase, now on foot, leads to the base of massive cliffs. After one of Blackie's men dies from drinking poison water, and the other three are shot by Blackie in disputes regarding a canteen of water, which Blackie hogs, Tom jumps Blackie and knocks him out. Later, Nora, now Tom's wife, invites him, the reverend, and Ike and Happy to a hotcake breakfast as Billy works in the office. The saloon is now closed and boarded up.