Sheriff Sam Hammond was nudging fifty, conscious of his years and sometimes wondering just why he'd become a lawman in the first place. Then the troubles really began. First, he narrowly escaped with his life after a moonlight gun battle with a trio of rustlers. Then the abrasive range detective Herb Hopkirk rode in. Gun-handy, Hopkirk shot dead a rash cowpoke, crippled Sam's young deputy, Clint Freeman, and pestered Miss Sarah, pretty daughter of rancher John Snyder. A man-hungry widow and a bunch of newspaper cuttings about a mysterious bank robber dubbed Dick Slick added to Sam's headaches. Was it time for him to quit the peace-officer business before he wound up dead?