Young Tucker Beavers plays ball and grows up on the Mountain Beavers Ranch. When he is fifteen, his father gives him a herd of wild cows and his career as a rancher begins. He gathers his cattle with the help of a mysterious cow hand and helps avert an Apache outbreak by driving cattle to the Mescalero Reservation in spite of a run-in with Lincoln County ruffians. But that is only the beginning of the challenges Tucker will face as a rancher in the wild untamed territory of the desert Southwest.