Wayne plays ex-Confederate soldier Ethan Edwards, an Indian-hater who believes more in bullets than words. He's out to find his young niece, who's been taken captive by the renegade Comanches who massacred her family.

An author is looking for a man to play the leading role in the film version of her book when she meets a returning World War II Marine pilot on a train, and she is determined to turn him into the needed character. The stumbling block is that he thinks her books are ridiculous.