West of New Mexico’s Pecos, men called him the Cholla Kid — a dashing cowboy with a devil-may-care air and a merry twinkle in his gray eyes that could grow steely. His skylarking, however, brought trouble in his wake and he decided it best to drift from his home range for a while. Then trouble began in earnest. In the Comal Valley he rode into more of it than he had ever imagined could come to one wandering cowboy in search of adventure.