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.