Montana cowboy Duke Fergus travels to 1906 San Francisco to collect a debt from Tito Morell who runs a place on the dodgy Barbary Coast. Though he heads home after losing the money to Morell's card-sharping, Duke takes a crash course on card play and returns with all his savings ready to take on Morell and start up his own place. A lot of this is due to Morell's woman Flaxen whom Duke has fallen for. The earth may soon be moving for him in quite dramatic ways.