Throughout the length and breadth of the sun-bleached cow town of Mescal, Arizona, seethes an undercurrent of suppressed excitement. In front of the town’s blacksmith shop a group of Mormon homesteaders gather about their potential leader, Webb Nichols, in grave discussion. In a lodge room the special meeting of the Magdalena Stockmen’s Association, comprising the big cow outfits of the county, has turned into a deluge of hot words and very pointed accusations.

For years this particular part of northwest Arizona has been a rustler’s paradise. And as long as homesteaders like Webb Nichols and Shad Caney cover up for the rustlers, the notorious Steve Jennings among them, they’re asking for trouble from the big cattlemen. The Association decides to bring matters to a head by calling in Clay Roberts, a lone wolfer stock-detective with a reputation for getting results.

Roberts has a couple of strikes on him from the beginning in Deputy Sheriff Dufors, a weak and embittered tool of the homesteaders, and in Nichols and Caney, whose bitter, unreasoning feud is carried on by their children during school hours making life miserable for the pretty new schoolteacher. Dealing with the rustlers could be the least of his troubles.