After the Civil War, former Confederate Col. John G. McElroy leaves west Texas with six neighboring ranchers to drive their cattle to the nearest railway stockyard at Hays City, Kansas, but they lose their entire stock to a gang of rustling carpetbaggers as they enter the Six Nations Indian lands in Oklahoma territory. This convinces them that they must have an extension of the railroad to their area. They continue on to Hays City to make their demands and are told by the manager of the Kansas and Pacific Railroad, who is behind schedule in building tracks to Pueblo, that the planned routes west will not detour south into Texas. Impatient, they band together into a group known as the Raiders, attacking only the railroad. Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody are working for the Army under the command of Captain Benton, who is determined to avenge the railroad's losses and those of Calamity Jane, who is shipping equipment west for the railroad construction. Benton plans an ambush and orders the Raiders machine-gunned, but Hickok and Buffalo Bill intervene and take McElroy and his friends into custody. They persuade the Raiders to return to their ranches and then convince the Kansas and Pacific officials to push a line through to Abilene, Kansas.