Renegade Apaches capture frontier scout Hondo Lane who's trying to keep the peace between the soldiers at Arizona's Ft. Lowell and the local Indian chief, Vittorio. "Your dying will be slow and hard," the renegades tell Hondo, just before staking him out and preparing to pour hot coals on his bare chest. Vittorio arrives in time to save Hondo but troubles remain at the fort. Hondo's forced to kill the husband of store-owner Angie Dow, whose little boy adores him, and he must help protect a local mine owned by a man named Gallagher.