The post-Civil war generation of the Dutton family travels to Texas, and joins a wagon train undertaking the arduous journey west to Oregon, before settling in Montana to establish what would eventually become the Yellowstone Ranch.

A ranching family in Montana faces off against others encroaching on their land.

In the 1880s American West, murderous outlaw gang leader Frank Griffin hunts for ex-protege Roy Goode. Frank's chase leads him to La Belle, New Mexico--a town inhabited, after a mining disaster, almost entirely by women.