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At the close of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in the East while General George Custer fights the Indians in the West.  As John Lattimer arrives in Leavenworth, Missouri, to sell seven-shot rifles to the Indians, Buffalo Bill Cody and his new wife Louisa are reunited with Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.  Following the massacre of half the garrison at Fort Piney by thousands of Sioux Indians, General Custer orders Cody to take ammunition to the fort, while Hickok goes after their chief, Yellow Hand.

As Louisa confesses her pregnancy to Jane, Cheyenne Indians attack the Cody home and Jane is taken to the Cheyenne camp, where the Indians threaten to kill Hickok unless she tells them Cody's whereabouts.  Jane, in love with Hickok, saves his life, but sacrifices Cody's men, who are ambushed by Cheyenne using Lattimer's rifles.  As Hickok makes his way to the front, he sends Jane to alert Custer.  Cody and Hickok, along with what is left of the men at Fort Piney, defend themselves against the Indians.  As the fort's bugler dies, Custer's bugle is heard in the distance and the Indians retreat.  Back in town, Hickok challenges John Lattimer to a draw, but is forced to kill three of Lattimer's men, former soldiers, instead.  After Hickok follows Lattimer into the Black Hills, Custer orders Cody to bring him Hickok dead or alive for murdering soldiers.

Weeks later, as Cody tracks Hickok, a lone Cheyenne Indian, carrying the U.S. 7th Cavalry's flag, tells of Custer's defeat.  Meanwhile, Yellow Hand and Sitting Bull plot to extinguish the white man using Lattimer's rifles as Hickok and Cody meet in Deadwood to the stop Lattimer's shipment.  There Hickok shoots Lattimer dead in self-defense and rounds up his co-conspirators in the Bella Union saloon, where they play poker.  As Hickok plays his hand of black aces and eights, Jack McCall, who had earlier warned Lattimer about Hickok, shoots him in the back, killing him.  McCall is then arrested by Merritt and Cody's troopers, and Merritt exonerates Cody.  Calamity kisses Cody, saying, "That's one kiss you won't wipe off." Hickok and Custer and his troops later ride off to battle. 

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Notes
The ending of the film following the poker game was missing from the viewed print.  The conclusion of the plot summary was taken from the release dialogue script found in the Paramount Script Collection at the AMPAS Library.  The film's opening narration states, "Among the men who thrust forward America's frontier were Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody.  The story that follows compresses many years, many lives, and widely separated events into one narrative—in an attempt to do justice to the courage of the plainsman of the West."  The closing narration states: "It shall be as it was in the past.../Not with dreams,/but with strength and with courage/Shall a nation be molded to last."  Wild Bill Hickok's well-deserved reputation as a gunfighter was established in an interview with Colonel George Ward Nichols published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1867.  Hickok was a good shot and probably killed at least seven men.  He was a scout in the Union Army during the Civil War and after the war, he became a marshal in Hays City, Kansas, and then in Abilene, Kansas.  He appeared in a play with Buffalo Bill Cody in 1873, and in 1876, Hickok was shot in the back by Jack McCall during a poker game in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

As reported in DV and HR , shooting on a three-acre set of Deadwood City in 1865 built by Paramount began on July 21, 1936.  While DeMille directed interiors, he gave instructions to second unit director Arthur Rosson, who was on location, via telephone.  DeMille had with him a ten-foot model of Rosson's location scenes, as well as charts marked with every camera set-up.  The cavalry sequences were shot with the Wyoming National Guard at Pole Mountain, Wyoming, twenty-one miles east of Laramie.  On July 17, 1936, HR reported that two guardsmen has been badly hurt the previous day while Rosson was shooting a charge scene.  The scene of Custer's massacre was shot on the Cheyenne Indian Reservation at Lame Deer, Montana, where two thousand Indian actors were used as extras.  Additional scenes were also shot in Birney, Montana.  While location work continued in Montana, one production unit went on location at the Paramount ranch outside Los Angeles on July 24, 1936.  According to a HR news item on July 16, 1936, DeMille engaged actor Edwin Maxwell to serve temporarily as dialogue director.  According to modern sources, Paramount studio executives wanted "Wild Bill" to survive the card game shoot-out at the end of the film, but DeMille resisted.  Modern sources list the following character names: Edgar Dearing (A courier from Custer), Edwin Maxwell (Stanton, Secretary of War) and Bruce Warren (Purser of the "Lizzie Gill").  Modern sources also add the following names to the cast:  Francis Ford, Irving Bacon, John Hyams, Charles Stevens, Arthur Aylesworth, Douglas Wood, George Cleveland, Lona Andre, Leila McIntyre, Harry Stubbs, Davison Clark, Charles W.  Hertzinger, William Humphries, Sidney Jarvis, Wadsworth Harris, Tex Driscoll, and Stanhope Wheatcroft.