While on vacation in the Oregon wilderness, the plane in which the Judge and Mark are passengers, crashes with the pilot dead. They come across a campsite destroyed by a grizzly bear and a murdered fisherman (Terry Bradshaw).They take an inflatable raft and brave a river full of rapids. They're spotted by 3 men who prey on those they find in the wilderness. It becomes a matter of life or death as they try to escape the murdering hunters.
Judge Hardcastle gets on a train that's supposed to be for a convention. Trouble is, there is no convention. Several other people are there for different reasons and then start getting killed off.
Hardcastle and McCormick investigate a case in which the judge's guilty sentence was reversed and the prisoner released, but neither the ex-con nor the victim wants the case reopened.
Hardcastle's ne'er-do-well brother pays a visit, swearing he's gone straight---but actually intending to ask the judge for $100,000 to pay a gambling debt.