Nate Marker was on poorer times after cattle driving, just bumming around the State of Arizona. That was until he came upon the town of Gopher Gulch, ruled with a rod of iron by Sheriff Breckenridge. Nate, fortified by a shot of rye whisky from the saloon, came across a frenzied young man, shouting that his Mescalero Apache wife had been raped and killed. Nate made it his business to intervene, having a sense of justice about him after being a one time deputy under Wyatt Earp in his Wichita days. The only clue was an indented silver dollar clutched by the dead woman. Deciding to help the young man, who he called the galoot, inveigled him into an enormous and tangled web of deceit and intrigue that was to threaten him with death and untold danger.