Every fall Tom Reynard, ramrod for the Bar L, had a hard time finding cowpunchers willing to work the winter range in the bleak badlands near the Sioux reservation. So when Jigger Bunts, an eighteen-year-old from New York who was familiar with riding and roping, happened along, he was hired even though his youth was a red flag to Reynard. To pass the time in the bunkhouse, the other cowhands spin tall tales for Bunts, who they call the kid, about the exploits of Reynard, and soon Reynard becomes Bunts's hero and role model. Reynard quickly tires of the hero worship, so he concocts a new hero for the kid in Louis Dalfieri, based merely on a picture. Dalfieri replaces Reynard in the kid's mind as his hero, especially when the yarns the punchers tell the kid about this two-gun Robin Hood become outrageous.