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New deputy marshal Ace Sterling returns from Chicago just in time to help bring order to a small Utah town overrun by a family of ruffians. Meanwhile, the Phillip-Armour Meat Packing House asks Hunt to source hogs and cattle to fill vital contracts running low on supply. On the way back from Green River, bandits rob the train Hunt and his men are riding, setting off consequences for a rancher's family that ripple further than expected. Amid the unexpected turns, Hunt crosses paths with the grandson of the man who once owned the land now known as Hidden Valley.

Hunt and his men keep fighting crime on the plains, though the work costs him one of his most experienced deputies in an ambush. Personal drama follows when Cal and Phyllis announce their engagement, sparking a confrontation with jealous rival Timmy Galloway, whom Hunt had already banned from coming around. Meanwhile, Beau Hamlin visits from New York to discuss selling his father's Green River ranch, but a trip there turns deadly when a ranch hand claims the land was promised to him instead. A visitor from Washington asks Hunt to help track down a mountain man serial killer responsible for over thirty gruesome murders marked by decapitation, grisly staging and worse.

This episode is packed with surprises and shootouts, starting when Hunt intervenes to protect his adopted daughter Phyllis from an abusive boy, earning the wrath of the boy's vengeful father. Amid a string of missions, Hunt puts a reluctant Horse in charge of one, which succeeds and leads to a memorable meeting with a frontier legend. A bigger threat looms when a gang terrorizing California and Oregon turns east, evading the Army and heading straight for Hunt's ranches and Denver itself. Hunt leads his men to intercept them, and a fierce gun battle leaves several deputies wounded and one ranch worker dead, with the Cavalry arriving just in time to prevent disaster. Later, Marshal Earl Jefferson visits to tour Hunt's Green River ranches, and while there, a bank robbery draws Hunt into another shootout, this one revealing a surprising motive behind the crime.

Hunt has his hands full busy escorting Bella and Eduardo Ricardo, along with a crew of ornery loggers, to the Green River Ranch, where logging and sawmill operations get up and running smoothly. Trouble brews when a Wells Fargo stagecoach is found wrecked with six dead, sending Hunt's men on a manhunt and a vengeful brother shows up in Denver looking for payback. Sheriff Jethro Smyth arrives from Green River asking Hunt for a job, and Hunt expands his ventures further, buying another ranch to turn into a Clydesdale breeding farm and heading to Topeka to acquire more horses.

Hunt and his men keep clearing crime from the plains while building the family's future. A search for a killer targeting isolated cowboys leads to a harrowing rescue in remote Colorado, while elsewhere, Hunt's men race to Steamboat Springs to save a sheriff from men looking to seize control of the town. Back home, construction begins on the Green River Ranch and sawmill, and Beth grows unsettled by a stranger following her and the girls, prompting Hunt to intervene. Hunt visits brother Luther with a surprising request waiting for him, and a trip to a government horse auction brings an unexpected hire for the Utah ranch.

Hunt and his men face several shootouts across this action-packed volume. Harold Vance arrives from Chicago to fill the void left by a deputy killed on a recent mission, while Deputy Kelly Morrison finds himself caught in a deadly ambush while guarding prisoners in a barn. Judge Moore then asks Hunt to lead a mission into Utah after an outlaw gang murders a fellow judge and several others during a prisoner escape, a pursuit that leaves another deputy wounded and introduces Hunt to a promising recruit for the Marshal Service.y, is sent to Denver to replace Bob Rolling, a U.S. Deputy Marshal who was killed on a recent mission. U.S. Deputy M...

Hunt returns from Washington with good news, only for the train ride home to bring a shock: his youngest brother, unseen for sixteen years, boards after surviving three years in a Union prison camp, and Hunt takes him in help him with a fresh start. Back home, Hunt learns the couple on his Hudson ranch left months ago without a word, and a trip to Indiana for more Herefords turns sour when a manager's snobbish wife forces Hunt to fire them both to keep the rest of the staff from quitting. As his men tackle missions across Colorado battling murder and theft, Hunt loses a deputy and pushes Earl to honor a promise made to the fallen marshal, while Hunt himself settles back into the role of a U.S. Marshal.

Hunt's men head to Colorado's gold fields to solve a murder and recover stolen gold threatening to bankrupt a mining company. Meanwhile, Beth falls for an adorable girl at a rundown orphanage, and after visiting the cramped cabin it operates out of, Hunt leaves determined to help. Earl arrives from Chicago to discuss new federal laws, and he and Hunt travel to Topeka searching for missing deputy Kelly Morrison, uncovering a surprise along the way. Back home, a cunning cougar terrorizing the Percheron ranch proves too much for hired hunters, killing one and injuring three, forcing Hunt to take on the hunt himself, with painful results.

Hunt sets his sights on capturing the Golden Stallion, a wild horse that has evaded capture with its herd for five years. Meanwhile, Deputy Marshal Roy Thatcher escorts young Antonio Lopez back to Mexico, eventually promising to bring him and his mother back to Denver for a fresh start. Back home, Hunt faces a personal threat when a stranger challenges him to a gunfight, and soon after, he and his men brace for an attack from a gang of Georgia marauders bent on robbing and burning the town. Ex-Deputy Jerome Bridger arrives reporting stolen cattle, prompting Hunt to defy orders and lead a chase that erupts into gunfire. Hunt hires a new deputy to replace Bridge, a choice some doubt but Hunt trusts enough to send him to Chicago for training.

Hunt and Beth adopt Tabitha and settle her trust at the Bank of Denver, while John Ewing heads to Indiana to learn pig farming. Back home, Hunt's deputies push him to help reverse the sentence of Lester Barlowe, a man they believe was wrongly imprisoned, leading Hunt to seek Judge C.W. Crawford's help and a new trial. Meanwhile, romance stirs when Razer takes a liking to widow Catherine Waters before leaving for Chicago, and Walker's dog Scar is quarantined after a coyote fight. On the crime front, Hunt sends men to Utah to help intercept a dangerous fugitive, and a brutal attack on the Purgatory River Ranch leaves the family dead, prompting a cavalry-assisted manhunt to save the remaining cattle. Amid it all, Deputy Marshal Bridge falls for the ranch's surviving daughter and proposes, though she has conditions of her own.

Hunt closes the book on Howard Yancy when a sheriff and a grieving widow arrive in Denver to confirm his identity, while his men keep chasing thieves and killers across rough terrain. Hunt tests the livestock market with some young bulls and Razer goes off to Chicago for marshal training. During a manhunt across Colorado, Hunt's men discover a stagecoach massacre with one survivor: a badly injured eight year old girl. With no one else to care for her, they bring her to Denver, where Beth takes her in and grows attached. But when distant relatives show up claiming the girl, Hunt suspects their motives have nothing to do with her wellbeing, and he and Beth must take drastic steps to protect her.

Hunt is shocked when escaped prisoner Howard Yancy kills two guards and swears revenge, then leaves a trail of violence from Alabama to Colorado. As Hunt spreads his men across Colorado and New Mexico to handle local trouble while waiting for Yancy to surface, he also loses one of his best men to replace a marshal in Kansas City, leaving him to find a replacement. Yancy's luck runs out when he raids a Texas Panhandle ranch, murdering the rancher's pregnant wife and hands while the rancher is away. An ex-Texas Ranger, the grieving rancher joins forces with U.S. Marshals from Austin to hunt Yancy down, tracking him across three states through a trail of bodies and stolen horses.