He is the ranch hand Buck hired, good with horses and better with a rope, and he pulls a stranger out of the bull ring before learning that stranger is Buck's estranged child, home from the city and newly divorced. One of them inherits the ranch. Forty chapters of hazing chores, lasso lessons, a storm that strands them in a line shack, a barn fire at midnight, a lawyer with bad news, and a question asked on one knee.