McCloud escorts a witness from New Mexico to New York City, but loses him to kidnappers and finds himself in a murder case involving Puerto Rican nationalists, a lady novelist, a Wall Street lawyer, and a dead beauty pageant winner.

McCloud goes to help a lady in distress, but gets caught in a shootout that sends him back to Taos on Chief Clifford's orders. At the last minute, the Chief is kidnapped to force McCloud to act as a courier to Paris.

McCloud is becoming famous thanks to press coverage. It doesn't endear him to the boys in blue, who have to deal with a string of drugstore holdups.

McCloud is assigned to shepherd the cowboys at a visiting rodeo. They're old friends, and one of them is killed by a jealous rival over a woman, it appears.

McCloud, whose new-found celebrity (thanks to an article by Chris Coughlin in the Chronicle) vexes the Department, is assigned to protect a British theatrical maven who has received letters assailing his ""filthy, obscene"" productions and threatening his life.

In Paris, McCloud and a stewardess try to locate a mysterious arms smuggler with ties to an American mogul and a New York gubernatorial candidate.