PAWNEE BEND, in the days when Texas trail herds still came up to Kansas loading pens, was a community of unpainted board shacks, saloons, and lawlessness. To this town came Bill Dunham, age twenty-four, late of a peaceful farming section of Kansas, seeking his fortune. His quiet demeanor deceives a cowboy in a saloon and when the latter essays to make the granger dance, Bill takes the cowboy's gun and neatly shoots off both his boot heels.
So begins this story of the western ranges where a killer Marshal ruled as law, judge, and hangman; a story of great trail herds and fighting men; and above all a story of Bill Dunham who in spite of his quiet manners and lawful ways became the most dreaded man of the region.
Here is a tale in which suspense and racing thrill keep pace with a genuine poignance of human drama staged against a real background of the West.
