Nan Avery is a woman with troubled past and smeared reputation who decides to move from her hometown in order to escape some unsavory romantic entanglements and run away from gossips and people talking. She goes west to the town of Trail, seemingly a dull and common cattle town on the prairie, but like many of those, it has a secret. Nan learns of a territorial cattle war that goes on in the town and her involvement makes things complicated.

Ernest Haycox is among the most successful writers of American western fiction. He is credited for raising western fiction up from the pulp fiction into the mainstream. His works influenced other writers of western fiction to the point of no return. Fans of his work included Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, and the latter once wrote, "I read The Saturday Evening Post whenever it has a serial by Ernest Haycox."