"Tommy Reeves and his pal Red Armstrong make friends with the Mexican people who live near the ranch where they work. Their foreman tells them to stay away from the Mexican girls, but the boys do not heed the warning and are fired. Then they find out that Vinch Cushman, their former employer, is trying to force the Mexican people off their land by damming the creek that supplies their water. When Red goes to sabotage the dam, he is shot dead. Tommy...

A stranger named Dunbar comes to the town of Dry Camp and goes to work at Rich Stantons ranch. Shortly after Dunbars arrival, he helps find the body of an old man named Ross Guilford. The foreman, Paul Kelso, picks a fight with a ranch hand named Willard Brumley. Dunbar intervenes, and Kelso fires him. As Dunbar asks around, he learns from Jack Brumley, Willards father, that Guilford knew something about Brumleys wife, Louise, a beautiful woman of...

"Reese Hartley has come to Wyoming to settle on his own land. But his cattleman boss expects his hired men to turn their homestead claims over to him. Hartley resists and is let go. He meets a woman named Muriel. She has come west to look for land, but her cousins want to exploit her. A cowboy is found dead on the range, and an underage female cousin of Muriel is found dead. This girl, Nancy, has a history of flirting, and suspicion falls on Hartley....

In the 1890s, a stranger named Dunbar rides into the town of Winsome, Wyoming. He goes to work at the Little Six ranch and begins to look into the affairs of Tut Whipple, a water project developer who built a dam near the town. The investigation starts with missing cattle, but extends to the disappearance of a young girl. Whipple's men come after him, first with fists and then with guns -- leading to a showdown on the dark prairie.

"Dunbar, working on a ranch in the Niobrara country in Wyoming, connects the death of a hardscrabble homesteader with the death of an old horse trader some fifteen years earlier. As Dunbar goes to work on a corral project in town and then on fall roundup, more murders take place--a wandering drunk who has picked up gossip in an alehouse, and then the proprietor of the alehouse. People who know too much are being silenced. An old woman named Verona...

"These eight stories range in length from flash fiction to novella. In "Incident at Blue Nose Creek," an investigator pursues a suspect for the serial murders of three saloon girls. In "Visitors in Cantera," the narrator receives a visit from questionable relatives. In "In the Breaks," a girl goes deer hunting with her grandfather and has to fend off unwelcome advances from a young man. In "Man of Trees," a homesteader helps solve the murder of an...

"Shortly after Dunbar goes to work at the Hook ranch, a ranch hand who aspires to marry the cook's niece is found dead. The niece, Vivian, works at the mercantile, and her boss seems to be fond of her. Another cowhand on the ranch also fancies her, but he, too, ends up dead. Dunbar and Edwin "Rye" Ryerson, the cook who tells the story, go to a local brother to learn more. Back in town, Dunbar and Rye learn that Madeline, a street girl, has been killed....