The famous frontiersman Old Shatterhand is staying incognito in the small town of Weston, Missouri, to pursue his work as a travel writer. By chance, he encounters Mrs Hiller, an old friend, there, whose husband, a fur trader, is being held captive by hostile Crow Indians. They accuse him of having killed several Crow Indians together with his Shoshone friends. In his hotel, Old Shatterhand also overhears plans for a raid on two gold prospectors. Old Shatterhand suspects that the mastermind behind this is the 'Prayer-Man', a gangster disguised as an itinerant preacher.