The CinemaScope film was founded on a publication of the exact same name. Jim Douglas (Gregory Peck) is a rancher who has been pursuing the four outlaws who killed his wife for six months. He rides into town of Rio Arriba, at which four men, Alfonso Parral (Lee Van Cleef),'' Bill Zachary (Stephen Boyd), Ed Taylor (Albert Salmi) and Lujan (Henry Silva), fitting the description are in jail awaiting implementation, so that he is able to see the hanging. The town has issued instructions to simply permit the hangman (Joe DeRita) to input, so Jim has been taken to Sheriff Eloy Sanchez's (Herbert Rudley) office to say his own organization. The town has never had an implementation before, and they've brought in a person from outside town to do the occupation. The intruder allows Jim into the jail to find the men. They claim they had never seen him before, but he gets the face of a hunter.