Wade Chisholm is offered a permanent rank promotion if he will sign on with the Army for eight months to work with four bands of renegades and hold- outs in the Texas area. He decides to take the promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and heads into Texas o find the Southern Cheyenne. He gets shot at when he puts out a white flag for a talk. Later they move without notice and Wade has to chase them for a talk with their chief. He also has to cross weapons with bands of Kiowas, Comanches, and Arapahos, before he is sent to Oregon to settle a deadly dispute between two Oregon tribes where fishing for salmon is the big sticking point. The salmon make up a quarter of the tribes winter food supply and Wade is getting ready to take on the two tribes.