Riding the plains with Little Beaver and Buckskin Blodgett, Red Ryder encounters bandits trying to hold up the stagecoach carrying Libby Brooks, owner of the Devil's Hole newspaper, and her brother Gerry. Red drives off the attackers. Gerry prints an editorial condemning gunmen and Frenchy Beaumont, owner of the hotel and saloon, tells his henchman Blackjack Keno to kill Gerry. Red prevents this but Frenchy, an expert duelist, challenges Gerry and in a duel kills him. Red hears about the duel from his aunt Duchess and Gerry's sweetheart Marge but arrives too late to stop it. Red joins Libby in a fight against Frenchy and his gang, and tries to jail Frenchy, but fails as the Sheriff and Judge Prescott jails Frenchy's henchman Pinto but are forced to free Frenchy on lack of evidence. Red challenges Frenchy to a duel but he is badly wounded. While recovering he wonders why he failed to hit Frenchy, and then thinks he knows why Frenchy always manages to kill expert gunmen who are his opponents, but is never hit himself. Recovered, he goes looking for Frenchy for a rematch.