- The Cartwrights go up against two San Francisco men who plan to get rich by killing off the antelope herds--which the Indians rely on for their food--and selling the meat to Virginia City's swarms of silver miners.
- Burdette and Thorne are selling native antelope meat to the "diggers of Sun Mountain" (the miners) at outrageous prices. The lack of their native food causes the Paiutes to steal Ponderosa beef. The Cartwrights decide to sell their beef directly to the miners, hoping to ease the tensions with the Paiutes and keep their herd from being rustled. This interferes with Burdette's business plan and he tells Thorne to stop the beef from arriving in Virginia City. Thorne and his men accomplish this by dressing up as Indians and killing all but one miner. Harris is left alive to tell everyone it was the Paiutes that ambushed them. Thorne then dresses a miner and kills Tukwa, one of the Cartwright ranch hands. An Indian war is imminent unless the Cartwrights can get to the bottom of this. They go to speak to Harris only to discover that he is too dazed to identify anyone and the only other person who knows Burdette is guilty, a saloon girl named Glory, has been kidnapped. They track Burdette and Thorne and their captive to the desert where a gunfight breaks out. Burdette, who never approved of the killing, refuses to return fire. As he and Glory try to escape from Thorne, Thorne shoots him in the back. Then Thorne uses Glory as a shield. Hoss tackles Thorne and fights him. Burdette, who isn't dead, gets an opportunity to shoot Thorne, killing him. Burdette then dies in Glory's arms. Adam laments that Burdette came looking for a bonanza and now he's dead. Glory says Burdette found it right before he died and that's better than not finding it at all.
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