Deputy Sheriff Kirby Frye, young in years but resolute, finds that the law has been taken out of his hands when some local citizens- headed by Phil Sundeen- set up a court and lynch two cattle thieves. Kirby, for whom there can be no impulsive, improvised forms of justice, goes after Sundeen and his accomplices who desert him one by one- and finally it is Sundeen alone who faces the inflexible judgment which Frye offers him at the point of a gun..... A lean, laconic entertainment which wastes not and wants not.