When itinerant cowboy and drifter Jack Burns reads that his old friend Paul Bondi has been sentenced to two years for aiding and abetting illegal immigrants, he returns to Duke City, New Mexico to Bondi's home. After a reunion with Bondi's wife Jerry, with whom he has a very close relationship, the nonconformist Burns sets out to join his old friend in the county jail on a drunk and disorderly charge. Burns gets into a brawl in a local cantina, but when the police decide to release him because of jail overcrowding, he assaults a policeman. Now facing a seemingly unendurable one year term. Burns is disappointed to find that his friend does not want to escape but do his time and return to his family. Using two hacksaws smuggled in his boot, Burns breaks out of jail and heads for the Mexican border. Now facing a five year term for his escape, a sentence he could not endure because of his fiercely independent nature, he and his faithful horse Whisky race up a mountaintop to freedom with the authorities in pursuit.