Charlie Medders was riled. Here he'd been prospecting for close to ten years, living from hand to mouth under the hot Arizona desert sun, without a bit of luck to sink his teeth into. Now, at last, he had a strike - the richest damned silver ore anybody'd seen in these parts since the days of the lost Weeping Widow Mine. But the hell of it was that fat old Tiberius Jones, the banker who already owned most everything worth the having in these parts, had got himself a fancy court order taking the mine away from Charlie and divvying it up among his creditors - and Jones had rapidly bought up all their shares himself. Charlie figured he was a fair man, but he wasn't about to sit still for any deal like that! Tiberius Jones was shortly to learn that there's nothing more stubbborn and cantankerous than a hard-bitten prospector with his back up.

Charlie Medders swore. It was his mine, and his sweat and toil that made it pay. Now they were after him on a trumped-up charge. He reloaded his rifle, a sixteen-pound Sharps that could knock a man kicking at a thousand yards. His lips curled back in the snarl of a cougar. If it was a fight they wanted he would give them a belly full!