"Into California`s 1880 frontier country rides Robert Louis Stevenson (Edgar Barrier), the novelist, looking for story material `in a land of stage-drivers and highwaymen`, and soon finds it when Bill Foss (`William Bishop(I)`) arrives in the mining town of Silverado with a new stagecoach." Foss barely breaks the city limits before he is challenged to a race by Zeke Butler (Forrest Tucker) , stage driver for the town`s established stage-line operated by Jeannie Manning (Gloria Henry). During the race, Foss`s coach is forced off the road and his best team-horse is injured. Doctor Henderson (Edgar Buchanan), noted for his philanthropies to the local miners, advises Foss he can`t run his horse for some time to come, and Foss takes a job with Jeannie, hauling water to Squatter`s Flats, a desert waste which requires irrigation. Later, Zeke, carrying gold from Last Dog Ditch Mine to Silverado is robbed by a mysterious bandit called The Monk,and he suspects Foss.