In the title story, Hurd's Crossing is the name of a town located some distance from Fort Jackson. Three merchants from Hurd's Crossing came to see Colonel Cross at the fort, complaining that their town is being terrorized by Emmett Roberts and his gang. Since the last three town marshals in Hurd's Crossing had all ended up dead, the colonel sent Captain Sam Bennington, a man who once served the Confederacy and worked in law enforcement before joining the US Army. After all, there were only eight men in the gang, counting Roberts. Sam Bennington was one man against eight and heading into a job in which no one had survived.