On the stagecoach for Tucson that picks up the pards, the boorish bounty killer, Colin Chase, stirs up the passengers until Tex makes him throw away the hat-box where he was hiding the head of a criminal. Having escaped the ambush of Piccolo Lupo’s Apaches, the group takes refuge in the Yampa Fork trading post and the first victims of the red devils, armed precisely by the bounty killer, arrive quickly! The cowardly Bellamy, one of the travelers, running away after having strangled his wife, dies during a suicide sortie: he was afraid of ending up on the gallows, already targeted by Tex as a suspect.