A journalist by the name of Scribbs is writing a colourful history of the Wild West and its most notorious characters. Lucky Luke tells him a history of the Daltons in episodic form.

Badmington, a young Englishman, accompanied by his butler, comes to take possession of the ranch bequeathed to him by his uncle. Lucky Luke is responsible for protecting him against Jack Grabbit, an unscrupulous man who also covets the property...

Vernon Felps, a farmer, decides to settle in the middle of a cattle-raising region, which does not seem to be to the taste of the local ranchers. Cass Casey takes the lead of a group determined to drive out the intruder. Lucky Luke then helps Felps.

Washington summons Lucky to give a Russian grand duke a tour including cattle crime capital Abilene, Kansas, as his adventurous highness otherwise refuses to sign a crucial US-Russian treaty. A foreign spy tries to sabotage them. Next the aristocrat insists on other risky detours, so Lucky and the US Cavalry must even fake an Indian attack.

To get rid of the Daltons, who are locked in the same cell as him, Fennimore Buttercup reveals the hiding place of a "treasure." The prisoner claims to have hidden his loot in the small town of Red Rock Junction. The four brothers escape from prison and set off in search of it.

A shipment of weapons has fallen into the hands of the Apaches, and Lucky Luke is asked to travel to El Plomo to investigate. Along the way, he discovers firsthand that the Apaches do indeed possess rifles—but he is saved by... a woman

Following several acts of sabotage, a train company calls on Lucky Luke to help them build their track.

Lucky Luke will have to deal with Phil Defer, a famous mercenary from the Wild West.

After the Daltons latest escape, Joe vows to avoid being brought back by Lucky Luke by moving to Canada under the aliases Frank, Louis, Robert and Jim 'Imbecile' Jones. Their trail of crimes is easily followed anyhow, and over the border Lucky, having no jurisdiction, teams up with Mounties corporal Winston Pendergast, who has reports of their first crime in Canada. The chase proves long and eventful.

After helping to stop the robbery of a stage coach, Lucky Luke is hired by the stage coach company to guard a gold transport headed for San Francisco. He is accompanied by prison dog Rantanplan (a. k. a. Rin-Tin-Can / Bushwack).

Lucky is hired to escort wanted adolescent Billy the Kid from Texas to stand trial in New Mexico. Clumsy rowdy Malloy was hired to free Billy, but rather causes physical danger, mostly for himself and bystanders, worse then Rantanplan. When Luke gets his job done, the result is most disappointing.

Quack 'doc' Doxey sells lemonade as a panacea. When he's run out of town, Lucky provides him a safe escort to Green Valley, where the quack's 'elixir' rendered everyone green, and so on following his colorful trail. Lucky catches up and disguises as a golden 'miner' mark.

Lucky and Jolly looked to boarding the river boat Daisy Belle for Minneapolis in New Orléans. However Lucky can't resist assisting the old captain Barrows in a race dare against the Low River, whose captain spares no dirty tricks,, largely depending on moody, gullible ship mechanic Banks.

Nobody is surprised when the Daltons escape again. Lucky is waiting in their home town when they rejoin their penniless mother, whom shop-keepers just allow to rob them daily, as she was their only visitor and smuggled in a file. Despite guard dog Rataplan, who causes trouble to whomever he follows, and ma Dalton's cat, Lucky can handle the boys, and her albeit it with much more effort.

Against his better judgment, Lucky accepts to supervise the Daltons as ultimate test for a humanitarian senator's experimental rehabilitation program. Luke stops the Daltons escaping to offer them a full pardon if they spend the next month clean as a whistle. Even Joe commits to seeking an honest job for the time, so he can legally take revenge on Lucky afterward, but a clerical error spoils this game.

Lucky Luke reluctantly accepts to escort an atypical convoy: a caravan of single women for a desperately male-only town, across Comanche Indian territory. The Daltons escaped again, a pro criminal reportedly infiltrates cross-dressing, and Luke worries about a mystery admirer.

Arresting a local tyrant crook, Lucky reduces his HQ to a phantom town. A telegraph error sees Joe Dalton released instead of another Joe, and he manages to free his brothers. They head to the ghost town, which they declare Dalton City, under mayor Joe's pirate flag, hoping to found a crime free-haven. Luke heads there and bizarrely advises Joe how to run the town.