Clint Adams meets Nellie Bly; a journalist in her 20's working for The New York World while he's in Denver, Colorado visiting his friend, Talbot Roper. Bly is working in Molly Muldoon's Dance Hall & Emporium as a showgirl, in order to write a story about the life of dance hall girls in the West. She's terrible at it, but meeting the Gunsmith is a bonus. The two part as friends, and she returns to New York, where her career takes a new path. Months later, in search of a more serious subject, she has herself committed to an institution to research an exposé on insane asylums. But upon her release she becomes convinced someone is trying to kill her to squash her exposé. When no one believes her, she turns to the only man she can think of who might believe her, and help her.Clint agrees to meet Nellie in St. Louis, where he listens to her story and agrees with her. From that point on he saves her from several attempts on her life, at least two of which come at the hands of clearly insane killers. Clint believes that the people who run the asylum are using their patients to not only kill Nellie, but as hired assassins. He works with Nellie to make sure her exposé is published, and to prevent her, and himself, from being murdered.