Homestead Acts
Shane, a laconic but skilled gunfighter with a mysterious past, is a drifter who rides into an isolated valley in the sparsely settled Wyoming Territory, sometime after the Civil War. He is hired as a farmhand by local rancher Joe Starrett who lives as a homesteader with his wife, Marian, and their young son, Joey. Starrett tells Shane that a war of intimidation is being waged on the valley's settlers. Though they have claimed their land legally under the Homestead Acts, a ruthless cattle baron, Rufus Ryker, has hired various rogues and henchmen to harass them and force them out of the valley.