In the ranching country, Jay Malo's adventures have made him famous, and earned him the title 'El Malo Hombre' - The Bad Man. 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. The adventures of Clint Fess, the adventure of Red Haney and the unclaimed ransom, or, perhaps more than any other, the great fight and victory over the super-rustling scheme of Phirquist and Ridelle, earned for Jay the title of El Malo Hombre - The Bad Man.