Danny Siringo, who likes to be known as, Slim, his nickname, enters Paris, Texas in search of a doctor for a friend who had been horned by a cow causing a bad wound. A bad storm had come up at night with lightning, rain, and thunder causing the steers to run. Quite a few dead cows, a few dead horses from the remuda. Men wore out, cold, wet, and very surly. Slim was chosen to go to Paris and bring back a doctor. While there, Slim met a woman he had planned to marry at one time, bu, she called the wedding off. Chet Early, trail boss left for Paris in search of horses to replenish his remuda. Then, as luck would have it, Slim's sister, Jenny, found him in Paris, Texas after she had gone searching for him to let him know there was trouble at home. After hearing what the trouble was, Slim and Jenny boarded a westbound stage to go home. They had traveling companions, as in 2nd Lieutenant Jamie Carlson and his wife, Susan fresh from West Point. An Irishman named Flynn Patrick McDonagh. The stage run into trouble after more trouble with the Apache, as well as, a of group of rough, tough, and rowdy men who, at one time, helped chase an Apache war party away from the Walnut Ridge Way Station where the stage was under attack. Slim and Jenny were going by westbound stage to Ringgold Barracks and Way Station, then, from there, north across Red River into Oklahoma, to Comanche and home, but, the northbound stage was late. Very late. Stranding Slim and Jenny in Ringgold, Texas.