Malcolm Theodore Puddle is a 21-year shipping clerk--from way back East. What is he doing out here? The Mountain Man's former neighbour, Humbolt Puddle, has died and left his crumbling 600-acre ranch to his only living heir, just as a greedy and ruthless cattle baron is circling the Humbolt ranch like a ravenous vulture. Poor, unsuspecting Puddle is walking into a death trap. Smoke is the not the pitying kind. But any enemy of Smoke's neighbour is his enemy, too: kill-crazy hired gunmen are threatening the whole valley and good men are dying. Puddle may not be much, but he's all Smoke has--as a take-no-prisoners mountain man and a timid tinhorn make for an army of two--in one hell of a fight.