Owen Chantry returned to his brother Clive's ranch in the Rockies to find it being run by a settler, Kernohan, and his son Doby: they'd found Clive outside his cabin, shot dead - a long time dead, and with his pockets emptied...

Owen suspected from the start who had killed his brother, and why. The Mowatt family, a bunch of tough renegades with an old grudge against the Chantrys, were certain that Clive had buried some gold up in the hills - gold that rightly belonged to them. Owen figured it wasn't as simple as that, but before he could get at the truth, he had to deal with them Mowatts...