When he hears of his father's death, Tim Chipman (Sterling Hayden) returns to the family logging company to help run it. However he walks back into a losing battle where rival logger Croft Brunner (David Brian) has bought up the railway line and refuses to allow its use - and making matters worse, they also begin to butt heads over sultry saloon singer Lynne Tilton (Vera Ralston). Hayden soon learns the railway affair was a scheme to force his father into using the longest and costliest way of removing his logs, with Brunner then following up with an offer to buy him out. But when Chipman threw the offer back in Brunner's face, he wound up dead in suspicious circumstances. Now with Hayden taking over, Brunner hopes to get his offer accepted but Chipman Junior has no intention of giving the company up, and he has a score to settle with a man he suspects had a hand in his father's death!