Ulysses Rule is a hangman charged with executing a band of profiteers who committed atrocities during the war. He arrests Tom McAllister, the assayer for a mining company that owns the town of Bannon and everyone who lives there. A federal judge is summoned to verify Rule's authority and the legitimacy of the charges against McAllister. But before the judge can arrive, McAllister turns up dead, and everyone in town aims to see Rule hang--with his own rope.