Discovery of gold at Thunder Mountain might make Lee "Kalispel" Emerson rich, but gold lust drives men to hostility, claimjumping, and violence.

It's Silas McGee's gold. He just hasn't found it yet, although he's searched for his mother lode for more than 30 years in the remote high country of British Columbia. Strangers with a similar bent for gold had best stay away: folks like that may never come out of McGee's mine alive.

The veteran Indian fighter takes command of a desert scout patrol when the lieutenant is killed in a Mohave attack. Callaghen's business is soldiering. For twenty years he'd fought all over the world, from China to the deserts of California; now he's a private in the U.S. Cavalry, poorly paid, his enlistment about to run out. He's ready to move on ... until he comes across a startling discovery: a treasure map belonging to a dead lieutenant who may...