Federal agent Tom Jeffords makes a deal with Apache chief Cochise to permit the mail riders to pass safely through Apache territory despite the mutual animosity of Apache and white.
Jeffords has a group of settlers after him because they think he has given the Apaches information.
Jeffords asks Cochise for help against Geronimo, and falls in love with an Apache priestess.
Cochise threatens to go on the warpath if a white boy raised by the Apaches is not returned to the tribe.
Cochise catches a poor Irishman mining gold on Apache land. Jeffords steps in and tries to keep the Apaches from killing him.
A conflict over the whether treatment by the medicine man or the army doctor is most effective ensues when smallpox develops in Cochise's camp.
A young Indian working as a scout for the Army is struggling between his loyalty to the Army and his loyalty to his brother, a member of Geronimo's renegade Indians.
An Indian friend of Jeffords goes to San Francisco after being convinced he is to represent the Apaches at an Indian conference. But it is all a scheme to get him to San Francisco to be used as the star in a circus side show.
An Army lieutenant who lured five Indians into a trap using a flag of truce and then disappeared returns afters several years. He now has to face the only Indian who survived the trap - Cochise.
The town derelict's imaginative son tries to convince the town that he saw two strange looking animals, one that looked like a dinosaur and the other like a camel. At the same time he is also saying he witnessed a murder.
Jeffords goes to San Francisco to investigate an overdue shipment of denim pants meant for Cochise's tribe and finds larcenous corruption and an old love.
Area commodity providers conduct raids which turn deadly disguised as Aravaipa Apaches to foment conflict and draw military into the area and so gain profit from the increased presence of troops.
When Geronimo's braves raid into Cochise's Chiricahua land, some settlement folks who blame the Chiricahua retaliate on a group of Cochise's innocents and nearly precipitate a war with the Apache tribes.
On a mission to a Mexican general for a plan to trap warring Apaches between Mexico and Arizona Jeffords learns that the foe is headed to New Mexico to where he must now go and on the way gains the company of a naive young woman survivor.
A theft of horses as a wedding gift for a tribeswoman by one of Cochise's braves imperils peace with the Chiricahua and the relationship of Jeffords and Cochise.
A man stirs near vigilante justice by falsely accusing the son of one Cochise's elders of murders to divert attention away from the responsible renegade Apache and the man's illegal dealing with that renegade.
Against Jeffords' advice, a brother and sister wish to take an Apache boy back east to be given a white man's education.
Renegade Apache leader Chato has Jeffords arrange with Cochise a peace meeting which is a ruse to persuade Cochise's braves to the warpath.
A Chiricahua man who has just completed medical school finds himself lacking acceptance of both Apache and white populations while the injury of Chiricahua and white playmates exacerbates the predicament.
When a retired Apache hating general visits the territory as a now Washington official and is shot by an unrequited love, an Apache brave is blamed by the biased settlers.
The son of a storekeeper who was killed by white reservation poachers when defending an Apache brave is captured and held for ransom when he pursues the poachers.
While Jeffords tries to persuade a novice and misguided agent for the Pinal Apache to allow the tribe ailing from conditions in low wetlands to move to high ground, braves kidnap the agent's daughter as ransom for agreement to the move.
During a harsh winter, Jeffords is compelled to use his own means to provide food for the reservation and keep the peace while an army officer and government agencies delay the delivery of promised provisions .
To validate the annexation of Cochise's land a western folk hero of exaggerated fame is sent for a phony review of the peace but the hero is targeted for assassination when he delivers a review opposite of that for which he was tasked.
Jeffords is placed between Cochise and the army when Cochise harbors due to a debt of honor a ruthless outlaw wanted by the army for the murder of an army doctor responsible for the man's dishonorable discharge.
Cochise's son and young braves kidnap an influential white man whom Jeffords has brought to negotiate the man's plan to clear the reservation for settlement which act creates a life and death confrontation of Chiricahua fathers and sons.
The Chiricahua have a hard time understanding why their cattle herd must be destroyed when hoof and mouth disease strikes so braves try to spirit the herd to Mexico while a small boy hides his bull.
Cochise and Jeffords capture a man who must be taken to Tucson to save a Chiricahua brave who the man has falsely accused of murder but in the process all the horses are lost , Cochise is wounded and there is minimal water for the three.
Jeffords investigation of tip that a man hired by an outlaw gang to assassinate Cochise is on the most recent stage arrival perplexes him because none of the passengers seem to have an assassin profile.
An archaeologist sent by Washington to produce a report on Apache culture disregards Chiricahua protocol and beliefs and so puts Cochise in awkward position between Jeffords and the medicine man.
Cochise's niece wants to live among white people to learn their ways, though Cochise disagrees. This leads to conflict between settlement ruffians and a Chiricahua suitor.
Jeffords persuades Cochise to convince the Coyotero chief to permit telegraph lines through Coyotero land. But war threatens after two lineman who accidentally start a destructive fire blame the Coyotero chief's pacifistic son.
Jeffords and Cochise try to warn the colonel at Fort Grant that Geronimo plans an attack on the fort. But, encouraged by his wife, the colonel decides to go after Geronimo himself, despite Cochise's warning that this is probably just what the renegade is hoping for, as it will leave the fort vulnerable to attack.
An army doctor's bride is held captive to force the man to treat Geronimo's gunshot wound. Cochise and Jeffords are captured and face death when they trail him.
A Mexican ranch owner is pressured by his foreman to not allow Cochise to move and water his cattle on the ranch property, by threatening to tell the don's daughter that her mother was Apache.
A brave exiled from Cochise's stronghold takes Jeffords as prisoner, because he falsely believes he is responsible for an ambush on his exile group. He wants to exchange Jeffords for his daughter, who the brave falsely believes was snatched in the ambush.
Jeffords convinces a reluctant Cochise to re-investigate the case of a father and son held to be traitors to their Apache ways. The son claims the man held to be the hero was the real traitor, costing the lives of ten warriors, and he hopes to avenge and clear his late father's name.
A man who kills an elderly prospector for a valuable locket alleges it is Cochise who committed the murder. His associates then determine to kill Cochise for the deed.
Gun runners intent on supplying arms to the factions in a Mexican power struggle steal and buy all the guns and ammunition in the area and use outlaw Chiricahuas to blame Cochise's group.
Jeffords' pledge of hi s life to protect a photographer accused by the tribe of cursing souls through his photography is complicated by the disappearance of a Chiricahua boy who was photographed.
Cochise asks for a teacher to instruct in the ways of white culture. To his chagrin, the one he gets is not only a woman, but a woman who holds fast to cultural values that demean Apache customs.
After a Chiricahua brave is scalped on the reservation, Cochise and Jeffords go to Mexico to confront a hacienda owner who pays a bounty for Apache scalps and are caught in the middle of a Coyotero raid.
When Geronimo's braves conduct a foray into Chiricahua land to steal horses, Jeffords must swear in Cochise and a limited number of Chiricahua braves so that they can be legally off the reservation to pursue the renegades and prevent a defection from Cochise.
A hold out group of confederate soldiers come out of Mexico and raid the Chiricahua reservation, which requires Jeffords to go to Washington to ask for help from President Grant to prevent Cochise from breaking the peace.
Jeffords must arrest Cochise for destroying a cavalry supply wagon. Cochise is silent on the reason: to prevent his son, the war leader of the Membres Apaches, from being involved in an ambush on soldiers.
An army major with a maniacal hatred of Apaches claims to suffer amnesia when captured by the Chiricahua, and thus is considered a protected being by them. But things go awry when his memory returns.
When a rancher becomes deathly ill, his daughter says that to keep the ranch going she can no longer honor her father's word to supply beef to the Chiricahua. Jeffords and Cochise are later suspected of poisoning the rancher.
During a drought Cochise requests the help of an eccentric alcoholic diviner, despite the skepticism of both settlers and braves, while the settlers attempt to divert a stream from the Chiricahua stronghold.
Jeffords and Cochise go to free Chiricahaus imprisoned in land in the middle of Arizona treated as foreign country because of a Mexican War treaty and discover that criminals fraudulently preserve the territory with a fake heir.
When a boy from a criminal family is caught stealing, Jeffords takes custody of him to prevent his imprisonment. But he then farms the boy to Cochise to teach him life lessons, to the mortification of his parents and the settlement folk.
A cavalry unit returning from an ambush mistakes an Apache group waiting for peace talks as a war party and slaughters the group. Cochise is persuaded to talk to Chief Nana in an effort to convince Nana that there is still peace.
Cochise suspects something is amiss when an outlaw matriarch has Jeffords kidnapped to use as a bargaining chip for the life of her son. The son is being held by a Coyotero chief whose life Jeffords once saved.
Jeffords is falsely accused of stealing supplies meant for the Chiricahua reservation, which spurs efforts by Cochise to thwart Jeffords' prosecution, despite Jeffords' insistence on following the judicial process.
Cochise's son Tahzay enters into a competition to be village chief, but his opponent Koteeja plans to cheat and murder him. When Jeffords convinces Cochise of the treachery the two try to thwart the plot.
Mexican emissaries cajole Cochise into returning a valuable golden Aztec idol, taken in an Apache raid, for a Mexican heritage museum. But the idol is stolen by bandits when leaving the Chiricahua stronghold.
Two beef purveyors to the military hire a gunman to kill Cochise to precipitate an Indian war and thus draw troops to which they can sell to the area.
A Chiricahua brave acting as an army scout is with an officer when the officer dies after being in an area with reported bubonic plague. The brave is quarantined but escapes and flees to Tucson where fear spreads among the citizens.
A shopkeeper's romance with a Chirikawa girl causes trouble and reminds Tom of his courting days.
A murderous Modoc woman wanders into Cochise's camp and causes a jurisdictional dispute among a Modoc search party, the Apaches and the U.S. Army.
Two nuns arrive on a stage from Philadelphia to return a gold statute and run a mission now on Chiricahua land. They must contend with the skepticism of Cochise and a with ruthless fortune hunter who arrived on the same stage.
An army major plots war with the Chiricahua for the dual purpose of avenging his damaged career, for which he blames Cochise, and hiding his complicity with a crooked army contractor to make money from the tribe's supplies.
A brave who deserted the Chiricahuas during war returns to plead for inclusion in the tribe so he can marry. But he is coldly rejected, and draws the murderous hatred of a brave to whom the woman was promised by her father.
The brave Natan who Cochise appoints as interim chief when Cochise is wounded in a Geronimo raid betrays the trust given him by siding with a renegade faction.
A young brave loses his arm while saving Jeffords' life from an attacking bear. He then feels shame for his condition while being shunned by the tribe for cheating the bear of its tribute.
A prospector whom Cochise fought in his youth defends his claim on Chirikawa land.
A US Cavalry general posts troops on the Chirikawa reservation, distrustful of Cochise.
A Chinese cook, saved from renegades by Cochise and Jeffords, is bound by Chinese culture to protect Cochise in the future. But he is put in a dilemma when his mining crew, working Chiricahua land, plan Cochise's murder.
An elderly Pinal Apache chief is duped by an ambitious brave to summon Jeffords for peace talks. But it's a ruse by the brave to kill Jeffords and use the murder as a catalyst to inspire a larger portion of the Apache tribes to war.
Cuchillo, a treacherous Chiricahua, convinces young Miguel that he has killed a white man from whom Cuchillo has stolen dynamite, so that Miguel will flee and Cuchillo can hide from Cochise his plan to deliver the dynamite to Geronimo.
Jeffords joins an area posse to pursue a gang leader who sold liquor to Chiricahua braves, hoping to prevent Cochise from rashly pursuing him. But when the posse fails and Jeffords is wounded, Cochise takes over.
A Chiricahua girl mistakenly believes that Jeffords has killed her brother, so Jeffords must find the killer to quell the girl's desire for vengeance against him.
When Jeffords is reassigned as Indian agent to the Utes, his replacement proves to be both without the necessary sensibilities and bureaucratic adaptability, so hostilities ensue as the Chiricahuas threaten to break the peace.