Having just left St. Joseph, Hale tells everyone there are no Indians when in fact two escaped Comanche captives steal two horses and show up at the wagon trains first stop. The female wants to kill a man there - her cowardly husband.

As the wagon train reaches Fort Pierce it is in dangerous Indian country. Chris is hoping the Army will provide an escort when they leave, but the Colonel refuses due to Army orders. In fact, he wants the lone woman there to leave with the train.

A tough railroad executive and his younger college educated brother are guided by Chris up a mountain to scout a route. When is accidentally shot by the younger brother, the older brother is forced to make a tough decision he may regret.

When Duke and Charlie do not return from a scouting assignment, Chris sends Cooper who has a pretty good idea what lays ahead. The Chinese widow of an Irish Ship Captain wants Coop to carry on her husband's empire.

Chris and Cooper along with a British journalist accompany civilians surveying for the Army when they come across an Army troop that has been massacred except for two survivors. This opens the journalist's eyes to the real America.

Coop accompanies Grace Marshall to visit her sister Myra whom, traumatized by an upbringing by an abusive father, Grace finds living a life of addiction and infidelity for which Grace wrongfully blames husband Vern.

After witnessing a bank holdup, Barnaby is taken hostage by outlaws Sam Spicer and Reno Sutton. Sam takes a liking to the boy as he reminds him of himself when Reno first made him a partner but Reno doesn't trust Barnaby.

On the train Coop is falling for the sister of the man running a gang who beat and robbed Coop in Hell's Kitchen in Brooklyn. Coop believes the man who says he is going west to change but his goons are still plying their scam on the train.

Eli Bancroft became an outlaw looking for revenge raising his three sons as such after a town's citizens banded together and forced his entire family to uproot, fearing they would catch their illness. Coop and others become his victims.

Kitty Pryer finds herself in a bigamous marriage to Victor Harp who asks her to join him on the wagon train posing as the wife of a friend until he can divorce his wife. However, Victor's change of plans puts Kitty in unique peril.

After escaping from a Confederate prison for being a spy, Sandra Cummings, becomes the lead in a musical troupe in the west. When she joins the wagon train, Cooper Smith takes an interest in her daughter Paula against Sandra's wishes.

The Bleecker gang disguised as farmers with several wagons seek Hale's wagon train to join but they actually carry a wagon of weapons and plan to hijack the train and use it and the weapons to rob a nearby fort of gold.

While scouting Coop nearly dies after finding a man near death from lack of water who has found a major gold strike. The man decides to let the wagon train share in his windfall but later reneges resulting in disaster for him and Coop.

Cassie Vance is accused of theft when money and items belonging to a woman on the train that she nursed turn up missing, and especially after another woman recognizes Cassie as having served time in prison for theft when young.

Canaby, who is unjustly reputed to have led a wagon train to disaster in the desert, becomes unexpectedly part of Hale's train as Hale has some of the same problems Canaby had and the train carries a widow wanting revenge against Canaby.

Julie Holland is falling for Michael Malone, a man haunted by the death of his sister. Meanwhile, the marriage of Ben and Beth Mitchell is strained because of Beth's increasing bitterness toward her husband and her feeling of unworthiness.

Jed Whitmore, one of three brothers that committed an infamous train robbery, is now town sheriff Frank Lewis but his brother released from prison comes to town with a fellow inmate and a reporter to get paid for the Jed Whitmore story.

Hale's train must take a dangerous desert route due to hostilities which danger grows when spoiled Geneva Balfour starts a fire destroying supplies to get her husband to return east and Hale lies to train members about the danger's extent.

When Hale begins to romance tough, independent freight line operator Kate Crawley, the others begin to fear she will wind up dominating Chris, and try to encourage her adoring assistant to better himself so that she'll notice him instead.

After being fired and setting a bomb which kills his tyrannical boss, Grover Allen joins the wagon train and heads west with his widowed daughter-in-law Della and grandson Jeff. A detective searching for Allen joins the wagon train.

Duke Shannon, arrested by the Cavalry, is charged with criminal negligence as leader of an expedition into the badlands, from which he alone has returned. He must retrace his steps with the Army and one of the victim's father.

Everyone wants to help pretty Melanie Craig after her husband is killed in an accident so four men fight over who will be the one to court and marry her. Also, Rudd Basham, father of three boys, uses the wrong ideas about women to win her.

Beautiful but shrewd Pearlie Garnet was forced to leave the wagon train after she was found to be a liar, manipulator, and thief who stole from everyone on the train.

A strangler is loose in the town of Bedrock so when the wagon train comes through it is joined by a good percentage of the town's population which it becomes apparent includes the strangler.

Duke and Bill are rescued from Indians by a stranger. He joins the train which is headed to Fort Chacon. Unknown to them he is an Army officer. Members of the train are offered stolen Army supplies creating a problem for the officer.

Wealthy Engel has used psychopathic Harry Diel as a proxy during the Civil War to save Diel from jail but Diel plots on the train as Engel's employee to usurp Engel's business by making himself appear a cuckold to Engel among other wiles.

With Chris gone Bill is in charge of the train when Barnaby goes overboard in his pranks. After messing with a wagon wheel, Bill orders him to fix it by himself causing Barnaby to break his leg causing a major rift between them.

Kim Case is returning home during Indian wars after schooling in the east although her parents have died. She is anxious to return to the man she loves, Lance Starbuck, who is an Indian raised by an Army Major from a young age.

Duke stops by the town of Stark Bluff looking for a friend and his wife who had formerly been on the wagon train. He finds out that the friend is dead, and his wife has been forced to work for ruthless saloon owner Zeb Stark, who bosses the town, including the judge and sheriff. When Duke tries to help her he is framed for killing a deputy, and Stark uses Duke's life as leverage to force the woman to marry him.

Coop brings Link Cheney to the wagon train after the professional gambler is wounded by sore losers in a game. Link is nursed back to health by Dorthea Gillford, and the two fall in love, but Dorthea hopes Link will quit gambling.

Barnaby and Charlie talk Chris Hale into hiring legendary mountain man Zebedee Titus as a scout. The nearly 80 year old Zeb's failing eyesight leads to problems including Coop's being captured by the Comanche Zeb couldn't see.

As the wagon train approaches the end of the trail, Hale's crew and passengers deal with birth, death, romance, a clash of different faiths, anger, gambling, a medical emergency, and a cooking contest as they prepare to separate.

Ex-Marshal Bob Stuart and his new wife are among three wagons joining Chris Hale's wagon train. Scout Cooper Smith is assigned to escort the new wagons to join up with the main train but there is blood, bad blood, between the scout and the ex-lawman. Entering the mix are old friends from Cooper Smith's past who also have an ax to grind against Bob Stuart. Coop soon becomes caught in between the man he was and the man he's become as his friends set out to destroy Bob Stuart and anyone who gets in the way.

Hide hunters, hunters who kill buffalo for their hides only, have temporarily joined up with the wagon train. One of their number, Gib Ryker, is a sociopath who enjoys antagonizing young Barnaby West. With the train desperately needing fresh meat, Cooper Smith, along with Barnaby, sets off with the hide hunters to look for buffalo. Along the way Gib continues to bait Barnaby, much to Coop's dismay until Barnaby is forced to defend himself, with disastrous results. Now Barnaby has to face Gib's brother Zach, who's out for revenge.

John Gillman being chased and shot in the leg by a posse escapes via a river. He is found downriver nearly passes out by a young orphan girl Abigail. She takes a liking to him but he tries to rebuff her. However, events cause a change.

Bill accompanies Barnaby to Sam Race's tent city of "entertainers", where a girl from the train that Barnaby likes has taken a job, not as a singer, as she had thought, but as a saloon girl. Bill hopes to keep Barnaby out of trouble with the gambling and con games Race runs, but trouble and humiliation is just what they both find.

Cooper Smith is on his way to the town of Washburn to pick up long awaited mail for the wagon train when he stumbles upon a stagecoach robbery in progress. The very proper Miss Barbara Lindquist is on her way to meet her fiancé, mistakes Coop for one of the robbers and ends up forcing him to help her. Further misadventures see Coop wounded and both he and Barbara struggling to get to back to the wagon train for help. Believing his wound will end his days as a scout, Coop finds himself falling in love with Barbara and she with him. But will their love stand the test ...

Brian Conlin walks into Hale's camp, delirious and dehydrated. After he recovers, he leads Coop to his group of Irish immigrants, whose wagons have broken down, and Hale invites them to join the wagon train. However, having been repeatedly turned away from place after place, most members of Conlin's group are slow to trust anyone or accept help.

Coop falls for a young half-Indian woman wandering alone in the wilderness. He brings her to the wagon train, where Hale discovers she is a survivor of a tribe totally massacred ten years earlier. A sheriff says she has killed two people.

Hale is unable to take everybody on the next phase and has to turn down some of those applying. One is Ben Campbell, an ex-convict who is being hunted by his escaped former partner, who believes Ben turned him in to the law among others.

Spoiled Nancy Styles, claiming to be the daughter of the owner of the company that owns the wagon train, is determined to get to Denver by forcing her way onto it and then Hale makes it clear he plans to bypass the city due to early snow.

A blind man called Sangre has joined the wagon train along with his guide. He is actually Coop's boyhood blood brother Richard Bloodgood, and he openly states his plan to kill Coop. Coop gets very hostile and refuses to discuss it whenever Charlie or Barnaby ask the reason Richard wants to kill him, but they know it has to do with the death of a beautiful woman long ago.

With Hawks ill and Comanches threatening to attack, an Army troop meets up with the wagon train. The Indians appear to greatly outnumber the soldiers, so to give the train hope the troop's lieutenant falsely tells Hale and Coop that there is also a relief column headed their way. Complicating matters even more, a sergeant from the troop recognizes Clay Shelby, a young man on the wagon train traveling with his pregnant wife, as a deserter from back in the Civil War whom he blames for the death of his brother.

A little girl, crying each night, appears to be a ghost from The Donner Party. Many people hear her, but she appears each night to Charlie, who questions his own sanity.

Charlie has finally found someone else who shares his dream of man being able to fly, henpecked inventor Hector Heatherton, who has been working on an idea for building a flying machine so Charlie volunteers to build a machine for Hector.

While out looking for water Coop and Charlie are stopped by a gang of five, including two women, who are on the run after robbing a bank and killing three lawmen. The leader of the gang shoots Charlie after tying him up, and they take Coop to lead them through a mountain pass to get to California.

Hale finds his old flame Chottsie Gubenheimer working in a gambling house and in an argument with the owner, so he asks her to come with him and join the wagon train. He comes to realize that he's getting more problems than he bargained for.

Wanda Snow has several times seen events before they have happened, causing several people on the wagon train to accuse her of being a witch. A medicine show peddler/magician gets the idea to use her in his act, but this creates friction between him and his devious partner.

Coop and Charlie ride into a small village for supplies finding it deserted. There is an Indian who stays hidden and later three men and a woman ride into town. They have been looking for the woman's father in a cave filled with bats.

The wagon train comes across old Jamison Hershey and Herman, his 3000 pound Belgian horse. The old man has made it safely through hostile Indian territory because the tribes are so in awe of his horse. Hershey and Herman are invited to ride with the train, though it becomes apparent that Herman is not able to travel very fast and may hold back the entire group.

Don Brooke is desperate for money for his pregnant wife Bonnie, who's condition is too delicate for the long trip without more medical care so he seeks a bank loan. When he sees an opportunity at the bank, it leads to tragedy.

Teacher Mary Lee McIntosh refuses to pay what she feels is an excessive fee to join the wagon train, so she decides instead to follow behind it in her wagon alone, and refuses help from Hale. But after her wagon overturns, things change.

Tough and headstrong female ferryboat captain Samantha Stewart is asked by her son Johnny and his bride to accompany them on the wagon train to California, where they will board a ship for a Pacific voyage. But actually, Johnny is not telling his proud mother that her doctor has told him that she must stay with a dry climate on land or she will die.

Despite the advice of some Coop decides to visit former girlfriend Eloise Blee, but finds Eloise gone, and instead winds up being talked into posing as her twin sister Betsy's missing husband and father of her baby daughter.

Barnaby is forced to shot and kill a boy his own age who took a woman and her daughters hostage. He is cleared of any wrongdoing but cannot shake the blood he feels is on his hands plus the judge wants him to inform the boy's mother.

A white renegade rides into the wagon train camp with an Indian girl tied to a rope and forced to walk without food or water. He says that he is bringing her back to the tribe where she will be tortured and killed for killing the chief's son. Hawks, in charge of a smaller group until Hale and Coop meet them with the rest of the train, decides to forcibly take the girl from her sadistic captor and keep her with his group, even knowing that this may lead to an attack from the chief's tribe.

Coop tells Bill the story of the Earp brothers and the Silver Lady, a woman who was encased in a coffin of sliver coins that melted around her after the stagecoach she was riding on and guarded by Morgan Earp had an accident and burned.

The series' final episode begins and ends with the two characters who stayed with it from beginning to end, as Charlie tells Hawks about his earlier days working for trading post operator Jarbo Pierce. Jarbo, once a wild, hard-drinking man, had become a minister, though he could still take on any man who tried to fight him. When his younger brother Adam arrived at the post Jarbo found himself at odds with him as Adam preferred the wilder ways of life and didn't understand Jarbo's concerns for the Indians he traded with, and began working with a man who wanted to use ...