In "Dead man's gold," Ken Gregory comes upon a lynching and is able to disperse the mob. Sam Petnell, whom they had unjustly accused of horse stealing, tells Ken he knows the location of a cache of gold buried on the Box-T Ranch by Will South. But then Sam is murdered on the trail. In the title story, Ray Donovan, who was adopted as a child and raised by Aunt Kate Donovan on the Box D Ranch until he ran away, returns after receiving a letter from his cousin and becomes embroiled in bitter right-of-way dispute.