From a three-time Spur Award-winner comes the tale of an orphaned boy who is forced to become a man. Mark Kelton is eighteen years old-part boy, part man. On the trail to set up a ranch in eastern Oregon, his parents are killed by an unknown assailant and their strongbox containing $8,000 is stolen. Mark heads out onto the empty plain where he encounters Bronco Curtis, a man who knows what he wants, and Curtis befriends the young orphan. When Curtis was Mark's age, an older man had done the same for him. Under Curtis's tutelage, Mark becomes a hardened rider and an experienced cowboy, capable in the use of firearms. In Ten Mile Valley, Curtis purchases a small cattle ranch and appoints Mark as his partner, even though Mark is destitute. Even so, always at the back of Mark's mind is the knowledge that, somewhere on the plains, the murderer of his parents still rides free. Mark is convinced that he cannot truly become a man until he finds that murdering thief

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