Who insures the gold MacKay almost died trying to deliver?
In the early 1840s, Wells & Fargo employee Ramsay MacKay comes upon a broken down carriage in the countryside and gives belle Justine Pryor and her mother a lift into Buffalo, New York, though he warns them he is in a hurry to make a delivery of fresh oysters. The ladies endure a very bumpy ride, and he arrives in time to enable his employer, Henry Wells, to impress some bankers with the speed of his service.
Wells sends him to set up a branch office in St. Louis, which is quite convenient, as the Pryors reside there. MacKay and Justine begin seeing each other, though her mother disapproves, as does Justine's more socially prominent suitor, Talbot Carter.
Impressed with MacKay, in 1846, Wells sends him to open trails to California. MacKay takes along Hank York, a frontiersman who only works when he has to, and Hank's constant Indian companion, Pawnee. Among his many duties, MacKay sets out to transport gold from a mining settlement to San Francisco. One of his customers is prospector Dan Trimball. When Dan expresses his longing for his sweetheart back East, MacKay recommends Wells Fargo's new shipping venture. Elated, Dan sends for his girl. Meanwhile, when MacKay sets out with the gold, he is shot and left for dead by two robbers. Though he recovers, he is threatened by his miner customers, who do not believe he was robbed. He shows them a draft from Wells & Fargo that will cover all their losses.
When MacKay and Dan meet the ship in San Francisco in 1851, passenger Henry Wells has a surprise for his star employee: Justine has come too (though only with the blessing of her father, played by Ralph Morgan). The happy couple get married.
Though their union is strained at times by MacKay being away so often on business, they have a daughter and remain in love. For the birth of their second child, Justine sends her husband to fetch her mother.
Wells & Fargo