After seeing a man kill his Indian wife over gold, Yuma tries to take him to the nearest fort for trial, but the Indian Chief and father of the murdered woman captures them, and Yuma must convince him that he did not kill her.

Yuma arrives in a town in which the local editor checks guns and, when he checks Johnny's, one is discovered missing. It is learned Ted Keller has taken the gun to settle a perceived injustice to his father.

Johnny Yuma fulfills a promise made to a dying Union soldier. He rides into Lassiter City to return a keepsake medal to the boy's family. The mother proudly receives the medal and then asks Yuma to stay on as a cowhand.

Yuma becomes the leader teenage gang that plans to rob a bank, with the full intention of making them decide not to go through with it.

Yuma happens upon a ruthless gang of drifters running out of supplies and proceeds to join in the defense of a nearby family that he has learned the gang is targeting.

Yuma tries to saves a very ill family against a mob lead by a townsman who's calling it diphtheria, and wants to burn them out.

Yuma finds items on a dead horse and brings them to the home indicated, where he is arrested by the Sheriff for suspected murder. He is cleared but remains to defend the Mexican boy then held for the crime and being railroaded by the deputy.

Yuma is arrested for vagrancy upon arrival in town put on a road gang of a group of men that the corrupt sheriff has falsely arrested for vagrancy to work on projects without wages and he immediately starts leading a plan to escape.

After Yuma kills a man in self defense, he finds himself in the position of having to mediate between the man's dangerously defensive widow and his associates who include his employer and co-workers.

Yuma buys the contract of a war buddy, who is now a boxer past his prime, and attempts to discourage the friend from further competition.

Yuma arrives in town to begin his job as bodyguard for a man who is killed upon his arrival. Oddly the townspeople are elated by the death but Yuma is determined to have justice and receives unwanted assistance.

Johnny signs on as a hand for a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, former Union soldier Paul Travis, who has settled for health reasons among Confederate sympathizers who mean him harm.

When a sweetheart of Johnny's youth is dying, her husband, a former Union officer for whom she betrayed Yuma, seeks out Yuma so Johnny can say that he forgives the woman and assuage her guilt.

Yuma is befriended by a married couple who perform a shooting act. When the alienated wife forces her affections upon Johnny to persuade him to run away with her, the obsessive husband vows to kill him.

Yuma is in town to deliver a letter to Lick Stribling when he is targeted by young Virgil Moss who wants to make his name as a gunfighter to defend his family name against the charge of cowardice.

Yuma rescues old Sam Amister from thieves and takes him to his hometown where Yuma learns Amister is hated for grave robbery but Yuma expects there is more to his grave digging than just stealing valuables.

Glory, a saloon girl, has been banished from town for murder without trial. Yuma offers to help her but while in town he runs afoul of Emma Longdon who has falsely accused Glory to keep her from her brother Don.

Yuma kills a man appointed sheriff by his gang leader brother who seeks revenge by intimidating the fearful townspeople into not transacting any business with him.

A Confederate colonel and two of his marauders live in seclusion to avoid consequences of the war but the two marauders kidnap a banker's daughter and send Yuma to collect the ransom.

A mortally wounded soldier stumbles into Johnny's camp. Before he dies, he says only one thing: "Fort Concho." Johnny rides to the fort and discovers it empty of soldiers. The sole survivor is a coward who hid during the fighting and survived--knowing Indians do not harm the mentally infirm--by pretending to be crazy. Before Johnny can leave, he's captured by Kiowas who plan to torture him to death.

Johnny Yuma returns home one year after the war's end to find a gang of thugs have extorted a local mine and murdered his father while his father's deputy and the rest of the town live in fear and despair.

Realizing Yuma is literate and in admiration of his ability to stand up to illiterate Armbruster family, Liam O'Shea offers Yuma a temporary schoolmaster job and he gains the affection of Peggy of which Troy Armbruster is jealous.

Yuma brings old farmer Frank Gottwald a document proving he's right in his land dispute with Dan Hauser. But since Gottwald lacks money for an appeal, and despite his bad heart, he agrees to Hauser's deal to walk his entire land in the hot sun---which could prove fatal.

Snake bit, Yuma collapses at the home of a marshal who's been targeted by hired killers. He is taken in by the marshal's wife and son. But when they are both gone, the marshal's deputy, Roader, kills the marshal on his return home and frames Yuma.

Yuma finds a trapper caught in a bear trap and takes him to cabin where he discovers the man's blind daughter who mistakes him for an enemy until the actual brigands come to steal pelts meant to pay for the woman's eye operation.

A bounty hunter taking a beautiful, high class, woman in for murder at a stage depot, is poisoned to death, but Yuma is determined to finish taking her in for the dead man.

Johnny goes to a small Mexican town to retrieve a General's sword for the General's widow, and he finds the circumstances of the General's death differ from what he was told.

Johnny, badly wounded, is taken to the town of Tremblor, where the doctor saves his arm. But why is the doctor being kept in a jail cell?

When Yuma comes to meet a unknown woman who has written him, he discovers her grave, and her embittered brother digging a grave for Johnny Yuma, whom he blames for her death. But Johnny never met the girl, so he joins the man incognito to find the impostor.

Charlie Burton summons Yuma and three other members of a rebel raiding party in which his son was killed. He informs them that he is giving them a gold mine in the Mojave Desert in memory of his son. But mistrust and murder ensue.

Johnny intervenes when fanatical Ezra Taber and his son harass, torment and terrorize a widow because of her former career as a dance hall girl.

Yuma arrives a year after being summoned by Ted Evans, a drummer from his Confederate regiment, to find the man addicted to pain medication and acts to help Evans break the habit while experiencing interference from an unscrupulous druggist.

Yuma comes upon a woman whose mind has become unstable after the murder of her husband. After the woman mistakes Yuma for her dead husband, he takes her for medical treatment and baits a trap for the murderers.

General Grant pays a post-war visit to the South, and Johnny tells young Jimmy the story of Lee's surrender.

Jeremy Hake receives a double blow of bad news---that his mine is worthless, and that his family is in need. Hake commits murder in a robbery attempting to help his family. Hake asks Yuma to surrender him for the reward offered for the murder and give the money to his family.

Yuma stops at a bar where a bounty hunter is holding the wife of the outlaw he hopes to collect on. Seeing Yuma's descriptive resemblance to the outlaw, the bounty hunter decides upon an alternative plan---killing Yuma and passing him off as the outlaw. Will the wife go along with this idea?

Rancher Bull Hollingsworth commissions Yuma to make a man out of his sheltered son, Seldon.

Yuma finds himself in the midst of a confrontation between a sheep man haunted by war memories and Mexican bandits.

Yuma's friend Jim Colburn has been found innocent of a murder for which he was to hang. Before the news of his innocence arrived, Colburn escaped from jail with a posse unaware of his innocence in pursuit.

The Ricker family frames Yuma for a murder that one of them has committed and then arranges for Yuma to flee town before he is hanged. But Yuma refuses to leave.

Yuma escorts young Demetria to an arranged marriage after her family escorts are killed by Apaches. On the way, she starts to express feelings for Yuma, which begins to trouble him.

Yuma witnesses as Roy Shandell murders his partner to keep the money from a stage robbery. Yuma nabs Shandell and delivers him to the Socorro jail but Shandell's father uses nitroglycerin to force the son's release.