A young surveyor gets a job with the railroad company in the West, which is planning a new railway line. There, he meets the experienced Westerners Sam Hawkens, Dick Stone, and Will Parker, who take the young man under their wing. When a grizzly bear invades the camp, Old Shatterhand, as he is now called, manages to kill it with a knife. Shortly thereafter, Intschu-tschuna, the chief of the Apaches, his son Winnetou, and the wise Klekih-petra arrive at the railroad workers' camp and inform the surveyors that this is their land and that the work must be halted. Klekih-petra is shot by the drunken Rattler, prompting the Apaches to dig up the war hatchet. A first attack by the Apaches is repelled, and Winnetou and his father are captured by the Kiowas, who are allied with the Whites, but Old Shatterhand...