“You’re of age,” said Bob Birnie, owner of the Tomahawk Ranch, to his son Bud, “and you’re now on your own. Your mother’s all for music –and I’m all for cattle. I’ll give ye ten thousand dollars and you can go to Europe as she wishes, or if ye prefer, I’ll brand you a herd of she stock and let you go your ways. Whatever ye choose, it’ll be make or break with ye.”
That talk with his father was like the cut of a whiplash to stubborn young Bud. He refused the alternatives, took his three horses and his bedroll and left home to make his own way in the world.
Bud rode North out of Wyoming and didn’t stop till he came to Little Lost Valley in frontier Idaho. There he got himself a job and began an adventure that will trhill every lover of stories of the old West. For Bud landed in a nest of thieves, cut-throats, murderers and assorted crooks –all wanted by the law.
Pitted against him, Bud found a ruthless gang who were safe from any law except their own. Aiding him he had only the undercover help of a beautiful and desperate woman and the advice of a crook with a conscience. He kept his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut. He kept his guns oil and his horses running. And when the final showdown came, the stubborn young Scotchman beat the crooks at their own game –and collected a stake big enough for any musical-minded young cattle rancher.
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