Skeeter Bill returns to Yellow Butte to celebrate the twelfth birthday of a boy named after him, only to learn that his friend Hooty Edwards has been imprisoned for a bank robbery he believes Hooty never committed, and after surviving repeated attacks, he uses a daring bluff at a coroner’s inquest to expose Sam Keenan as the robber, Slim Lacey as the man who drugged Hooty, and Johnny Greer as their murderous accomplice, leaving the badly wounded Keenan to promise his ranch to Margie Edwards and opening the way for Hooty’s exoneration, before quietly wishing the boy a happy birthday with his family’s hope restored.