This is a classic story of the Wild West, a story of reinvention, of justice, of right makes might. Panhandle Smith develops a wild free life as a cowboy until homesickness and a longing for his childhood sweetheart, Lucy, leads him to find them moved to Marco, a town in New Mexico. His childhood enemy Dick Hardman is ensconced there with his grasping father and their power seems invincible. Smith has a plan. Fighting down his past as a gunman, he prepared to start a new life with only a saloon girl and an itinerant cowboy as his allies. But even the best plans have a way of going awry. Set against the dramatic background of a wild-horse roundup, the plot leads to the inevitable clash between two strong and stubborn men. The action escalates toward the end, but as in most of Zane’s novels, the good folk finally win out and the man gets his girl, finally.