The rollicking Western Dusty begins in 1878 in Mills County, Texas, when two ranch hands come across a stranger at a campfire. They find out later that the man named Dusty had drawn them there to save their lives from Indians.

Dusty Rhodes joins the men as they travel back to the ranch where they work. Dusty is known to the owner, and ends up taking a job for the rancher leading a cattle drive to Kansas.

Along the way, there are storms and the herd is attacked by cattle rustlers, but Indians help Dusty and his men fight off the rustlers. Dusty meets a Mexican woman and the two fall in love and marry.

Dusty returns from the cattle drive just as his wife is giving birth to their child. The sequel to this book is now being written, and takes up the story four years later.