They came out of the mountains, a tight-riding bunch just like a breath from the past in their blood-stiff, stained and reeking buckskins. They all wore beaver tail caps, and their hair was shoulder-length, their features almost completely hidden behind bushy, matted beards. They were the Buckskinners, and they robbed and often killed to get what they wanted. But now it seemed that they'd gone into the kidnapping business, and the husband of the beautiful woman they'd abducted was very specific about what he wanted Yancey Bannerman and Johnny Cato to do about it. If possible, they were to save his wife. But one way or the other, they were to kill the Buckskinners—every last one of them.