One of the last of the great American cowboys, Ben Smith is a three-time rodeo champion with one last chance to take a stand. Injured in a rodeo fall, he heads home at the age of forty to the Little Brawny Ranch, where he befriends the son of the Big Brawny's owner. Ben agrees to show little Jimmy the ropes: the rigors of ranching, the rewards of hard work, and the awe-inspiring beauty of the wild mustang herds running free. But when they learn the horses are being rounded up--for the slaughterhouse--the rawhide cowboy and skinny greenhorn strike back, each in his own way, to save the mustangs. But there is the inevitable, violent, historic showdown.