"After the split with Wes Wilson at the end of Book One, Rawhide Jake works undercover at the huge Flying XC Ranch where he tracks down and arrests five rustlers. His reputation as a dangerous man grows throughout the region. On the spring roundup, the dust of the herd fills his nostrils, but he saves the life of the cow boss. Jake falls for a married woman and later, upon the death of her husband, marries her. He and Wes hook up again, take down a four-man rustling crew where Jake is almost killed, start-up a fencing company employing Chinese laborers, and thwart an eight hundred head theft that leaves both of them wounded. Jake and the Chinese crew battle a range fire and defend against a pair of murdering drifters. He kills a wanted murderer, is himself accused of murder, and jailed. He is released, but the insult prompts him to leave Texas for Arizona"-"--