He is offered a chance to redeem himself by bringing in a group of bank robbers who have hijacked a wagon shipment of nitroglycerin, and finds himself aided in his quest by a spinster whose father was killed by the criminals.

When a shipment of highly explosive nitroglycerin is stolen from a transporting troop of United States Army cavalry by the ruthless bank robber Hawk and his gang of nine outlaws, Cogburn is given a chance to redeem himself.

Alone, he enters the Indian Territory and tracks the bandits, who include Cogburn's former scout Breed, to the remote settlement of Fort Ruby, which is now a Christian mission.

The only surviving inhabitants that have not fled are the Reverend's spinster daughter, Miss Eula Goodnight, and one of her Native students, a teenage boy named Wolf, whose family died in the attack.

Cogburn shoots another man and Eula and Wolf make a lot of noise by firing into the air, and the outlaws flee, leaving behind the wagon with the nitro, which also has a Gatling gun on board.

Coming upon a river, Cogburn commandeers a raft from an old ferryboat man named Shanghai McCoy, stashes the nitro and Gatling gun on board, and heads downstream, hoping to drop off Eula and Wolf somewhere safe before his final confrontation with Hawk.

[4] Although Stuart Millar was a longtime Hollywood producer, he had directed only one film, When the Legends Die (1972) (based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Hal Borland), prior to helming Rooster Cogburn.

[7] Canby concluded that the film is "a cheerful, throwaway Western, featuring two stars of the grand tradition who respond to each other with verve that makes the years disappear.

"[9] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety wrote that the film had "an embarrassingly prefab script, along with much forced and strident acting, all badly coordinated by the numb and ragged direction of Stuart Miller.

"[10] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called the film a "slow and rattletrap" star vehicle for Wayne and Hepburn, whose pairing was "not so much a relationship as a very good-natured contest in scene larceny.

"[11] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "a patchwork conception that might have worked if the script had been considerably more ingenious and the direction considerably more adroit ... Screenwriter Martin Julien hasn't discovered how to develop a relationship between hero and heroine that runs on the same track with the chase story, and Stuart Millar's direction is as heavy as lead and slow as molasses.