When hardened trail boss Tom Reece (Glenn Ford) loses all of his money in a poker game, hotel clerk Frank Harris (Jack Lemmon) offers a $3,800 loan in exchange for a piece of Reece`s cattle business. As a result, Frank decides to leave his humdrum desk job and go on a cattle drive from Chicago to the Rio Grande, encountering such events as an Indian ambush and a stampede along the way. This beautifully panoramic Delmer Daves western is based on true events from the life of Frank Harris.