"The Heritage of the Desert" is Zane Grey's first Western for adults. It was originally published as a serial in a periodical called "Popular Magazine". The heroine of the story, a part-Navajo woman named Mescal, is abducted by a predatory group of Mormons. The hero, an Easterner named Jack Hare, rescues Mescal after he is cured of tuberculosis by the fresh Western air.