It is only a gun - not a common gun but its mystery is not the unusual manufacture but the fact that it is a dead man's gun. Three stories follow the fate of successive holders of this haunted weapon. The Great McDonacle is a second-rate trick shot artist; in his hands the gun cannot miss even the most difficult shots, but doesn't make him quite fast enough. Jack Fleetwood steals the gun from its sleeping owner; he can salt a mine with it and cheat an honest farmer by convincing him to buy this worthless mine, but the con man can be conned. Cole finds the gun on a skeleton; a fast draw becomes a reality, but tragedy comes to his brother. At the end, the gun is returned to the skeleton, waiting for its next victim.

Norbert Datry:
A kingsnake eats nothing but other snakes... preferably rattlesnakes. That is his sole diet. You see, it ouwld go against my nature to cheat an honest man. But the other kind... I sleep like a baby!