THEN THE SHOOTING STARTED

Malcolm Theodore Puddle is a 21-year shipping clerk - from way back East. What is he doing out here? The Mountain Man's former neighbor, 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 not the pitying kind. But any enemy of Smoke's neighbor 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.