After an unsuccessful attempt on his life by young Roderick Jefferson, Paladin is prompted into remembering a similar incident from his past. Once, as a youth, he agreed to pay off a gambling debt by shooting it out with a professional gunfighter.

Paladin is hired by a man to deliver ten thousand dollars. When the man is found dead, with the money missing, Paladin has to sift through a numbr of suspects, including a band of gypsies and the men who found the body.