Strike and Pete stay for the night with Strike's friend, but the friend's daughter, Aggie, is on heat. Strike throws a bucket of water over her, so she spikes his cordial with a knock-out drop she just happens to have. Strike passes out and, in the morning, he awakes to find that Aggie has released Pete. As Aggie's gone shopping, he decides not to arrest her, but he does happen across two dead women.

Strike wanders off hoping he might bump into the men who killed them, but instead finds a naked man staked out on the top of a mountain. From the length of the rawhide strips used to tie up the man, Strike deduces that this is the latest victim of a cannibal who has terrorised the Wild West for the last 30 years by staking people out on the tops of mountains then leaving them to roast in the sun before scoffing them alive. Strike lies in wait.

The cannibal returns and he kills him. Only then does he release the intended victim, whereupon he discovers that the man is a notorious outlaw. But Strike lets him go as nearly getting scoffed will probably make him change his ways. The outlaw is so pleased he tells Strike about a posse that is trying to find two kidnapped women. Strike happens across this posse, but the posse has just remembered that the women are really fat, so they are going home. Strike doesn't tell them they're dead and the posse takes a short-cut across an impassable desert. The lead man dies of a heart attack and the rest eat their horses then die of thirst.

Strike wanders into a trading post that he didn't tell the posse about. While admiring the post-owner's collection of home-made porn, he overhears some men discussing their recent bank raid and how they'd kidnapped then killed two women. Strike deduces that they're the murderers, but then notices that the pigs in the trading post's pig-pen are healthy. He discovers that this is because they're eating a dead body. While Strike is deducing that this is the work of Bullwhip Bones a man who roams the Wild West bullwhipping people to death then feeding their remains to pigs, a man dashes in and announces that a fire has inexplicably broken out in the barn outside.

The post-owner is so annoyed he beats the man to death. Strike doesn't arrest the post-owner because the man was to blame for not breaking the news more gently. The bank raiders go outside to watch the fire, but somebody shoots them. Strike deems this a good thing and wanders off.

He stops off in Duff for a bath. While bathing, he muses that it'd be nice if he had a spot of luck and the bullwhipper came here for a bath. Amazingly, while Strike is stuffing his face with pie and cream afterwards, the bullwhipper emerges from the bathhouse and whips someone's ear off. Strike challenges him to a showdown: bullwhip v Peacemaker. The Peacemaker wins.

The mayor sees the fight and reckons Strike was out of order - I can see his point - and organises a lynch mob, but Strike explains that he is a US Marshal. So, they give up. But the mayor is determined to make Strike pay for ridding the West of a mad bullwhipper and orders the sheriff to arrest him, but the sheriff can't be bothered and instead, he obligingly tells Strike that Pete's mum - the prisoner who escaped in chapter 1 - lives nearby.

Strike is as surprised as I was that he's accidentally arrived at the scene of Pete's crime (especially as this is a different town and sheriff than in chapter 1). He visits Pete's mum, who is busily beating up some bad guys who were being rude to her. Strike steals the bad guys' boots then has a romp in the barn with Pete's mum.

The footsore bad guys return to their ranch, where it turns out that they are the grandsons of the man Pete murdered. Their pa rides into Duff to demand their boots back, but he falls over and twists his ankle, so he goes home. But he utters a religious oath, which reminds Strike that escaped prisoners often seek sanctuary in churches. So, he goes to the church to see if Pete is there. He isn't, but the priest and a saloon-girl are, and they on their knees. And they aren't praying.

Then the wife of a lay preacher tries to sell the priest her home-made pie and sees this and is so incensed that she tells the schoolmarm, who can't be bothered, then her husband. He is so irritated that the saloon-girl is more adventurous than his wife that he washes his wife's mouth out with soap, then raises a lynch mob, who storm the church armed with a bucket of tar and 2 feather pillows. But Strike beats up a man with dirty boots and the mob lose heart and go away, but not before the lay preacher's wife mentions to Strike that the schoolmarm is acting strangely.

Strike remembers how schoolmarms often hide on-the-run prisoners and questions her. She won't say whether she's helped Pete to hide, and instead, makes the best use of her bit part by propositioning him, but as he's still tired from his session with Pete's mum, he declines and heads to the sheriff's office for a cup of tea.

A letter arrives from Aggie's father (the amorous woman from chapter 1, keep up) saying Aggie has run away to become a saloon-girl and can Strike go and find her. Strike is so amazed that the postal service has found him that he declines, but he does decide to have a ride around. He bumps into a man who reveals that he is the mayor's biggest rival.

Amazingly, at the same time the mayor hires two ruthless killers and a corrupt deputy to kill his rival. They arrive at the man's dugout and the mayor demands repayment of a hitherto unmentioned huge debt, but Strike amazes the mayor - and me - by announcing that he's repaid the man's debts already.

Strike's new best friend is so pleased he never gets mentioned again. But this does deflate the mayor and he rides off, but he uses some stunning logic to deduce that Strike repaid the huge debt using money that he'd stolen from the bank raiders that got shot outside the trading post in chapter 3.

The mayor resolves to get his revenge on Strike. Despite the fact that the stolen money is enough to get Strike put away for the rest of his natural, he decides to get someone to kill him instead. While he wonders who he can get to do this, he pays off the hired killers, and lets the corrupt deputy disappear for the rest of the book.

During the mayor's brooding he's nasty to a mail boy, who, for reasons I can't work out, is delivering mysterious blocks of burnt wood to him. Then, on the basis that a cook worked for the man Pete killed and Strike's grandpa once ate food, he decides the cook is in league with Strike (Strike's grandpa is often mentioned as being involved in plot twists despite the fact he's been dead for 20 years). He decides to kill the cook.

But the cook's friend is taking a bucket of crayfish for a walk and sees the mayor acting suspiciously. He warns the cook and a fight ensues between the mayor's concealed derringer and the cook's unconcealed knife. The knife wins, but before the cook can kill the mayor, Strike wanders past and scares the cook off.

The mayor is so unhappy about being saved that he forgets all about the cook and returns to his original plan of killing Strike. He rehires the two hired killers and these men head into Duff to kill Strike, but they stop off for a drink in the saloon. Luckily, Strike is also in the saloon. The hired killers have a foolproof way of winning showdowns which consists of whipping off their hats and, while their victims are busy being surprised at seeing their bald heads, they shoot them.

But Strike has seen a bald head before and kills them then goes to the sheriff's office for a sleep.

The rancher hears this and because he's still smarting about the stolen boots, he devises a complex plan to kill Strike. He puts a bounty on Pete's head, then asks another one of his idiot sons to find the outlaw who was nearly eaten by a cannibal in chapter 2 and tell him about the bounty, hoping that Strike will then decide to kill the outlaw and so get himself killed.

The son doesn't understand this plan - not that I can blame him - and he wanders off hoping he might meet the outlaw, but he comes across a wagon train that has inexplicably been raided by mysterious bandits in their only appearance in the story. He searches through the wreckage and finds the sole survivor, a dying woman, who begs him to help her, but he molests her instead then resumes his journey.

He arrives in Panner's Creek, which has now been renamed Painter's Creek after all the panners left. The son is too idiotic to be intrigued with the possibility that the frontier town has a resident artist, but luckily, the outlaw is in the first saloon he enters. Unfortunately, the son gets distracted by a fight that happened before he entered the saloon in which a bounty hunter killed a cheating gambler. Despite standing right next to the outlaw, the idiot son gets confused and hires the bounty hunter instead. The outlaw overhears their conversation and as he has nothing better to do that afternoon, rides off to kill Strike for himself.

The bounty hunter agrees to the rancher's plan, although he does demand payment in advance and, as he doesn't fancy the half-page journey back to Duff, travelling expenses. The son pays up, but he gets his money's worth when the bounty hunter instantly deduces that Pete is hiding in Rattlesnake Canyon.

Although the son, and me, have never heard of this place, he's right. But when the bounty hunter gets to the canyon, he discovers it's the West's narrowest and most dangerous canyon, being only two feet wide and filled with rattlesnakes. This does not deter him. He prepares for his sneaky ambush by shouting taunts at Pete, then edges sideways down the canyon. But he falls into a pit, gets bitten by a lot of rattlesnakes, and dies. Suppose he should have seen that one coming.

Strike receives another letter from Aggie's father asking, rather spookily, why are you still sitting in the sheriff's office? So, Strike decides to visit the West's narrowest canyon. He trips over the dead bounty hunter and this alerts Pete. He doesn't arrest Pete, as anyone who has hidden in a two-foot wide canyon filled with rattlesnakes for a whole book must be innocent. He suggests a safer hiding place.

Meanwhile, the outlaw finds the wrecked wagon train where the dying woman has now perked up and is hell-bent on revenge against the rancher's son. This distracts the outlaw and they both head to Duff, where she steals the outlaw's gun and shoots up the son.

Despite the town's abysmal record with lynch mobs, the mayor has another half-hearted attempt to raise one. But then the sheriff announces his retirement and deputizes the outlaw. This confuses everybody and they go home.

Then the newly deputized outlaw realizes that the mayor is the man who killed his entire family many years ago (Bit of a surprise this coming as it does 5 pages from the end) and is the man who he has sworn to kill if it's the last thing he does. So, he leaves town.

Then the rancher's other sons ride into town. They have acquired fresh boots, but, for no obvious reason, have been in a fearsome fight. They present a long list of grievances to the mayor, none of which have anything to do with the story. Not surprisingly, the mayor can't answer their grievances, so they drag him out of town and beat him to death.

The outlaw happens to wander by as they're doing it. He's so pleased he decides to hang up his gun, then rides off to settle down with Heidi (whoever she is).

Meanwhile, back in Rattlesnake Canyon, Strike reckons that if Pete is innocent, somebody else is guilty, and that means he'll have to arrest someone. So, he decides to avail himself of Aggie's lurid intents instead and rides off on a quest to find her.

He bumps into the rancher and the cook. Strike says, 'Howdy', but this probing interrogation is too forceful for the cook and he blurts out a confession that he committed the murder that Pete was supposed to have done.

Strike is so disgusted that the murderer has turned out to be such a minor character that he doesn't arrest him. But the cook's wife arrives and announces that the mayor has run away and that he wrote a confession before he left admitting to every crime ever committed in Duff and that the handwriting was convincing because it was written by the mayor's identical twin sister. Strike reckons this bizarre explanation is good enough for him and he rides off into the sunset, leaving the rancher to fall to his knees, hit the earth, and rant his frustration that Strike has foiled him yet again.

Although the cook reckons he'll return later to right more wrongs and chase Pete's mum round the barn. And sure enough, two weeks later a lawman rides into Duff to replace the sheriff, but the text doesn't tell us who it is.