Two escapees, a seasoned criminal and a gun happy youth, commit a vicious murder. Banner is forced into a professional and personal confrontation, facing the torturous question of when is a policeman justified in risking a fatal shot to stop a criminal. In searching his conscience, Banner re-evaluates his own life in the four years since his wife's death, in which he has buried himself in his work. At this time he is re-acquainted with Jenny Franklin, a girl he knew when they were kids. She has returned from overseas to take over her father's homestead, and as they get back together and pick up the threads a deep attachment grows between them.