Convict Van Duff is the sadistic leader of a large-scale prison break, a breakout that costs many lives but leaves six desperate survivors to vanish into the wild. The escape culminates in a tense hideout inside a forgotten mine near the prison, where the wounded Van Duff is forced to rely on others to chase a buried fortune. The six survivors are Van Duff [William Bendix], Monk Collins [Gene Evans], Luther Remsen [William Talman], Pete Mendoza [Luther Adler], Billy Lang [Marshall Thompson], and Joe Quinn [Arthur Kennedy]. Because the injured Van Duff cannot travel on his own, he proposes a dangerous deal: he will share the money he hid from his last bank robbery if the group helps him reach the stash, and the others reluctantly agree to the plan.
Once the coast is clear, the men embark on a long, perilous trek to a mountaintop where the loot is hidden, moving by foot, car, train, and truck as they dodge pursuit and nature’s bite. Along the way, they encounter a series of human moments: a farm woman they pass, a doctor who has been kidnapped by the gang to save Van Duff’s life, and a young woman on a train Gloria Talbott whose path crosses theirs in the fading light and cold wind.
Quinn, the only one who seems restless about the criminal life, is prepared to run off with the girl on the train until a radio bulletin blares his description, forcing him to confront the consequences of his path and the risk he would pose to her if he tries to pull her into crime. As they close in on the loot amid freezing weather, the survivors’ fragile alliance begins to crack under pressure and the lure of money, leading to harsher, self-destructive choices and confrontations with authorities: Mendoza is shot by a motorcycle cop following a robbery, and Monk is set on fire by a man the gang had beaten earlier.
The tension sharpens as Swanee Remsen, a reverend-turned-religious fanatic, spirals into madness, ultimately killing Billy Lang; Van Duff is driven to defend himself and ends Swanee’s rampage, narrowing the group to Van Duff and Joe Quinn by the time they reach the mountaintop. After the money is recovered, Van Duff betrays Quinn and leaves him for dead, a cruel move that returns to haunt him.
The next morning, Quinn discovers Van Duff frozen to death, still clutching the money, leaving Quinn as the lone survivor. With the weight of the escape and its losses heavy on him, Quinn finally yields to a pursuing search party, grateful for the presence and aid of those who came looking for him, and for the chance to tell the tale of what happened on that brutal journey toward the mountaintop.
