Ruthann Harper and Richard Goffage are taking 200 head of cattle to Australia. Ruthann has a questionable past.

Favor asks sheepherder,Tod Stone, to let the herd pass his flock. He won't. They take the herd over the ridge to the next valley. Tod takes a shortcut and beats them. Rowdy and Collins scatter the flock. Tod the herd. Rowdy fights Tod. Tod falls on his scaling knife. Favor tells Rowdy he's taking Tod and his flock to Twin Hat.

Gilmore tells Favor there's a panic brewing back east. He needs to cut ten days off the drive. Gilmore says don't tell the drovers about the panic. Tom Gwynn ,a fishbreeder, is sick with fever. He's taking shad to California to claim a $10,000 prize.

Mushy tells Wish he sees Santa Claus (Mr. Bateman) in the middle of August, in the middle of Texas. He's lost. He keels over. He, his wife Mag, and their nine year old boy, Danny, are on their way to New York. Danny won't last till Xmas.

The herd finally arrives in Abilene, the end of a long, hard drive. While most of the drovers plan to spend their pay painting the town, Favor has a few other ideas. He is going to buy some land and get out of the cattle business. Don Grenfell also has been told to quit due to a bad back. The drovers are all quarantined at Oddity House due to small pox.

Rowdy recognizes the new drover as a fellow Confederate soldier. But when Clay identifies him as a bounty hunter, the crew becomes paranoid about who he's after.

Favor and Clay are witnesses at a the wedding of Amy Gault and Frank Louden. Gus Marsdon provokes Frank into shooting Amy's brother Carl. Tom Gault, Amy's father, sends Ben Kerran after them. Frank and Tom claim the same 100,000 acres.

Morris G. Stevens, a failed actor, toured the world as a clown. Now a philologist he wants to create a Comanche dictionary.

Rowdy buys three white children from the Arapahos that have been raised by the Apache.

Rose Cornelius and her ten brothers have fenced off the trail Favor needs to cross to get the herd to water.

Rowdy rescues nester Higgins from being used for target practice and gets involved in his fight to stay on his farm.

After Rowdy tells Hey Soos to let a wild stallion go, Hey Soos tries to saddle it again. It bolts knocking Rowdy down and injuring his back. The remuda is stampeded. Out collecting the horses Hey Soos sees the stallion. He tries to lasso it. He is knocked of his horse by a limb and rolls down a hill into a stream. He awakes with his clothes drying overhead. He is in a kimona and a geisha kneels nearby.