Jay Malo was afraid of only three things -- a fouled gun, a lie on his own lips, and a fair-haired woman. From the day that he rode West into Arizona until the day that he reached Lew Sudler's mystery-ridden ranch in Montana, a strange inscrutable hand guided his destiny. In all the great adventures that preceded his last and greatest at the Iron Kettle Ranch, he found the truth of a dimly remembered saying of his dead mother's, that "bad men" were mostly better than many a good man. Meanwhile, in the ranching country his deeds achieved a heroic and almost legendary fame.