The Blanco Basin ranges in northern Arizona Territory are being systematically looted by rustlers. But no one knows what happens to the cattle, since the only way out of the basin is to the south, and they haven't been seen headed that way. To the east is a town, to the north the foothills of the Rimfire Mountains, and to the west is a long, high granite ridge. Former bounty hunter Owen Keene and his partner raise horses in the Rimfires. When Keene finds a pistol-whipped teenage boy on the range, it becomes apparent that all is not what it seems in Blanco Basin.