Into California's 1880 frontier country rides Robert Louis Stevenson Edgar Barrier, the novelist, looking for story material 'in a land of stage-drivers and highwaymen', and soon finds it when Bill Foss William Bishop arrives in the mining town of Silverado with a new stagecoach. Foss barely breaks the city limits before he is challenged to a race by Zeke Butler Forrest Tucker , stage driver for the town's established stage-line operated by Jeannie Manning Gloria Henry. During the race, Foss's coach is forced off the road and his best team-horse is injured. Doctor Henderson Edgar Buchanan, noted for his philanthropies to the local miners, advises Foss he can't run his horse for some time to come, and Foss takes a job with Jeannie, hauling water to Squatter's Flats, a desert waste which requires irrigation. Later, Zeke, carrying gold from Last Dog Ditch Mine to Silverado is robbed by a mysterious bandit called The Monk, and he suspects Foss. To clear himself, Foss suggests both stages take the next gold shipment and see who gets robbed and who doesn't. This strikes all-concerned as a good idea. But it turns out otherwise.