In the spring of 1896, after thirty years spent dispensing justice in Montana, Judge Harlan Blackthorne expires, leaving Deputy U.S. Marshal Page Murdock, his most steadfast officer, to escort his remains across the continent by rail. The long journey is interrupted from time to time by station stops for the public to pay its respects, and for various marching bands to serenade the departed with his favorite ballad, "After the Ball." This gives Murdock...

Someone is after Page Murdock. Hired killers, one by one, are sent to Montanta to end his life. Murdock knows where they are coming from and he travels to San Francisco's Barbary Coast and Chinatown to seek those responsible.