Plot
A young drifter is found stealing food at Horse Davis' ranch by Boatwhistle, the cook. Another rancher, Pat Farrell, who is engaged to Horse's daughter Abby, believes the boy to also be a horse thief and possibly worse.
Given the nickname Cooncat by the cook, the boy explains that he was wrongfully accused of murdering a man named Shell and has fled from the law. Shell owed him money and two strangers known as Smiling Man and Roper gave him a gun to confront Shell. He was knocked unconscious and fell next to Shell's bullet-riddled body.
Horse doubts the boy's story, though his youngest daughter Meagan believes it. At a barn-warming party for Pat, word comes that his parents have been found murdered. Pat is livid and plans to hang Cooncat for the crime. Horse dissuades him, creating a rift between the two old friends.
Smiling Man and Roper appear at the bunkhouse. They laugh at Cooncat's predicament and call him their lucky charm. Boatwhistle is killed by Smiling Man, and Cooncat flees the ranch before the rest of the family returns. Horse concludes that Pat was right about the boy and plans to ride out to hunt him down in the morning.
Cooncat returns and talks to Meagan through her window before returning to the trading post to look for Shell's body. Megan leaves a note for her father and accompanies Cooncat. The Roper and Smiling Man show up, and Megan and Cooncat hide in some ruins until morning, when Horse, Frank, Dixie and Pat Farrell arrive. Horse enters the trading post to ambush the man whom he believes is Cooncat, but it is really the Roper and Smiling Man. Cooncat emerges from hiding to warn him and is shot by the two inside. Horse confronts them, killing the Roper, but is subdued by Smiling Man. Pat shoots Smiling Man just as he is about to kill Horse, and as Meagan cradles the wounded Cooncat, Pat and Horse agree to take him under their wing.
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
