His horse dead, his leg broken, Hal Sinclair was a burden his three fellow prospectors would not accept. In spite of his pleas, they abandoned him to die in the desert. Unable to endure the torture of pain and thirst, he shot himself. Now the prospectors had to concoct a story that would absolve them of guilt as they would escape the vengeance of Hal's brother Riley, a famed gunfighter. Lowrie was the first of the three to be tracked down by Riley. Panic-stricken at the thought of a showdown with the vengeful gunman, he shot himself, but before dying he told Riley the whole story. Riley found the second man, Quade, and dropped him in a fair fight. Now only Sandersen, the last of the three, was left, but he saw a way to protect himself. He persuaded six respectable citizens that Riley should be hanged for Quade's murder, flimsy though the evidence was. There were startling surprises for the lynching party and some shocking ones for Riley in the long days ahead before he came to the end of the trail. Violence is pitted against justice in this story of a man who was both hunter and hunted, who rode through the trackless wilderness, his gun ready. In spite of the price on his head, he could protect himself, but there was another rider with him whose life depended on his judgment as well as his skill as a gunman.