The Ballad of Cable Hogue

Cable and his partners plot to seize the remaining water in the desert and disarm him. They disarm Cable and abandon him to a near certain death. Facing raging sandstorms and dehydration, Cable bargains with God and fights to stay alive.

Four days pass as Cable hovers on the edge of death. He stumbles upon a muddy pit and, after digging, discovers a plentiful supply of water. This miracle becomes the foundation of his future livelihood.

Cable realizes the spring is the only reliable water source between two towns along a stagecoach route. He decides to live there and turn the spring into a business.

Rev. Joshua Duncan Sloane arrives as Cable's first paying customer, testing the legitimacy of Cable Springs. Joshua doubts the claim, prompting Cable to hurry to Dead Dog to file the land office and secure the claim.

Cable purchases 2 acres around the spring and begins marking the boundaries. He goes to the town stage office to drum up business but is met with mockery from a skeptical proprietor.

Cable pitches his plan to a local bank president. The banker is dubious at first, but Cable's grit wins him over, and he is staked $100 to get started.

Stale with desert dust, Cable spends a night with Hildy, a town prostitute. They share a lighthearted bond, but Cable rushes out to finish boundary markers, prompting Hildy to chase him through the saloon and cause havoc.

Cable and Joshua head into town and arrive battered by drink. Cable makes up with Hildy and spends the night with her, while Joshua pursues the seduction of emotionally vulnerable women as a counterpoint to Cabes enterprise.

Hildy arrives at Cable Springs having been asked to leave by the modernizing townsfolk who can no longer tolerate open prostitution. She tells Cable she will leave for San Francisco in the morning but ends up staying with him for three weeks in a tender montage.

Joshua eventually wanders back to Cable Springs after trouble with a married woman in Dead Dog, but leaves a few days after Hildy decides to continue on toward San Francisco. Cable continues to run the establishment alone.

Taggart and Bowen arrive on the stagecoach, hoping to dup Cable or steal his hoard. Cable lets them believe that he bears them no ill will while he secretly prepares for a confrontation.

Cable outwits them by dumping rattlesnakes into the pit they have entered. When Taggart reaches for his gun, Cable shoots him dead and asserts control over the spring and the land.

Cable spares Bowen and shows him mercy by giving him Cable Springs. He decides to go to San Francisco to find Hildy and begin a new life away from the frontier.

A motorcar appears and drives past Cable Springs, a stark reminder that the frontier is fading. The travelers laugh at the archaic scene as civilization advances without justice for the old ways.

Hildy reappears in a motorcar, now prosperous after marrying a rich man who died. Cable agrees to join her, but while loading the car he trips the brake and is crushed by the vehicle as Bowen is pushed aside. Joshua arrives on a black motorcycle and gives a eulogy for Cable, closing the era he represented.