The Texan

Bill Longley arrives in a small Texas town with the intension of helping Les Torbit, an old army buddy, in his range war with Kyle Richards' outfit. Longley soon learns that Torbit is held for accidentally shooting Richards' teen-aged daughter, but a potential lynch mob is getting liquored up to hang the prisoner if the girl dies.

Professional gambler Jake Romer wins big in a poker game, taking thousands of dollars in IOUs from Jim Caldwell, an ex-lawman, who had planned to buy cattle for his ranch in Texas. Convinced he's been cheated, Caldwell and his men hold-up the Cattleman Association. Although Bill Longley hates Romer and rode with Caldwell years ago, he agrees to join the posse to capture his old friend.

Hot-headed Johnny Kaler, embarrassed that he's been caught cheating at cards, provokes Bill Longley into a barroom brawl and is quickly thrashed. Later in the evening Johnny tries to kill Bill, but dies when an unknown assailant shoots him in the back from the shadows. Johnny's big brother Mike still blames Longley for the shooting and calls him out for a showdown.

Bill Longley meets an old, but beautiful, friend who currently owns the local saloon and is happy to renew her acquaintance. This angers the local land baron, who has a proprietary interest in the young lady, and he tries to goad his college-educated son into killing Longley to earn the first notch on his gun.

Orin and Ruth McKnight's May/December romance hits a rough spot when Bill Longley returns from a cattle drive with news that Orin's son from his first marriage died driving off rustlers. To make matters worse, Ruth's old beau has traveled all the way from Ohio to bring his former girlfriend home.

While sleeping by his campsite, Bill finds a young boy who is so frightened that he can't talk. Bill is confronted by two henchmen who try to force Bill to turn the boy over to them. Bill learns that the lad's father had a gold mine and just struck it rich; he reasons that the miner had been killed by the henchmen and the only witness to the crime is the boy.

Bill Longley comes to the aid of Ramirez, a farmer who wants to plant peach trees when the local cattlemen object. The town's sheriff, one of Longley's non-commissioned officers during the Civil War, doesn't want any trouble, but is forced to take sides when a lynch mob threatens to hang the farmer.

The $8300 Bill Longley earned for driving a herd of cattle to Mesa isn't in his hands for thirty seconds before two gunmen take his money and the bank's assets as well, mortally wounding the bank president in the process. One robber is killed by Max Bowen almost immediately and Longley continues his pursuit of the remaining bandit into Mexico after the posse turns back.

After Longley is forced to kill a barfly that tried to shoot him in the back, he learns a quirk in the Montana law code - any man who slays another in a fair fight is responsible for the care and feeding of the widow and children until she gets married.

While escorting to prison the leader of a notorious gang, a sheriff and a deputy are attacked by the gang. Bill Longley helps to fight the outlaws and aids the wounded sheriff and deputy in taking the outlaw to jail. Then the outlaws threaten the entire town.

While riding down a trail, Bill is accosted by a 'boy' who demands he help 'his' father, who has been shot in the stomach. Before the man dies, he asks Bill to take care of his daughter and Bill discovers that the mud-splattered youth is really a pretty girl. Before the man can be a buried, a posse rides into their camp and the express agent accuses the dead man of robbery.

Bill has been hired to guide two Easterners who want to capture wild stallions to use as studs for breeding. Bill and the Dowds get off on the wrong foot when the husband becomes jealous of his old friendship with his wife. Dowd hires three gunslingers to fake a robbery so that he drive them off and look like a hero in his wife's eyes.

Bill Longley shares a stagecoach compartment with Jody Sammett and his pregnant wife Maria on their journey to meet Jody's father, Big Jim Sammett for Christmas. Jody dies helping to fight off bandits who try to rob their stagecoach and Maria's father-in-law refuses to take in his son's Mexican-American wife or allow anyone in town to help her even though she has started in labor.

After Longley rescues the wounded Reverend Kilgore from two would-be bushwhackers, he learns that the parson was heading for Phillipsburg, a town with a reputation for killing men of the cloth. Bill decides to pose as the minister to investigate, but without his holster at the minister's insistence. Bill attempts to rally the townspeople against the town boss and his crooked judge.

Longley is hired to drive the first herd of cattle directly from the Texas Panhandle to Denver. When he arrives he discovers that the woman who hired him, Jenny Brewster aka The Duchess of Denver, was the daughter of a sharecropper who lived on his plantation before the Civil War and is none to happy when Bill doesn't recognize her immediately.

A crooked sheriff and his henchmen are attempting to continue their reign of terror by running a crooked election. Longley persuades an alcoholic former Harvard law professor to stand-up to the old sheriff and then backs him when he must evict the gunsels from a ranch they're trespassing on.

Longley rescues the lone survivor of a murderous stagecoach robbery, but the man refuses to help him identify the three killers.

Longley and the town's newspaper editor come to the assistance of a Hungarian peddler when he is attacked by local toughs. When the editor is murdered by the same gunsels, the peddler must choose between helping the Texan bring the killers to justice or fleeing with his pregnant wife.

Longley attempts to escort Yancey Lewis, a bank robber sentenced to spend five years in prison in a distant town. Longley not only has to deal with a howling windstorm and an empty canteen, but the outlaw's gang and his pretty girlfriend who are all trying to rescue him - not so much out of loyalty, but Yancey's the only person who knows where the loot from the heist is hidden.

Longley's old friend, pretty ranch owner Martha Driscoll, negotiates a highly successful sale at the end of a cattle drive. Although her friends urge her to put her money in the bank, Martha refuses and ends up being robbed and murdered - but not before naming her killer - Clint Gleason. Longley tracks the killer to his hometown where his father is sheriff and believes his son is innocent.

Bill Longley returns from a cattle drive and discovers an impostor has stolen his mail, destroyed a saloon and dallied with a pretty girl, causing his father to demand a shotgun wedding. The impostor, a criminal recently sprung from jail by a crooked gambler, starts to have a change of heart when he discovers the respect and admiration others have for a man who stands up for the weak.

Longley has just ridden into the town of Yellow Jacket, when he sees a gunman unhitching a team of horses over the loud objections of a pretty woman. When Longley intervenes, he discovers the man is only carrying out an obscure town ordinance that forbids leaving a wagon on the street overnight. Longley learns that the town marshal has been lining his pockets with fines for obscure laws.

Wylie Ames, a big gruff widower, has been corresponding with a lonely woman whose personal ad he saw in an out-of town paper. However, she is coming to meet him and this creates a big problem. He asks his old army captain, Bill Longley, to meet her and break the news that Wylie is not the attractive gentleman she is expecting.

A crooked gambler with a Kentucky-born thoroughbred prods a drunken rancher into betting his entire spread and all the money he has in the bank on a horse race. After the rancher is bitten by a rattlesnake, the horse comes up lame after racing to fetch the doctor. Longley agrees to allow his quarter-horse to enter the race instead.

Longley rides to the rescue when four gunmen bushwhack a man riding in a buggy. Longley takes the man to a nearby ranch house, but neither the owner or the town doctor wishes to assist the wounded man, a judge scheduled to preside over the trial of the local land baron.