After learning of his sister's suicide, Nick, a small-time boxer, decides to pay a visit to his sister's junkie lover in Los Angeles, collect some money and pursue an early retirement in Mexico. Along the way, he meets a 9-year-old girl who's been abandoned by her father and together they hitchhike south.
Chicago hotel clerk Frank Harris dreams of life as a cowboy, and he gets his chance when, jilted by the father of the woman he loves, he joins Tom Reece and his cattle-driving outfit. Soon, though, the tenderfoot finds out life on the range is neither what he expected nor what he's been looking for...