Tell Sackett meets the beautiful Dorinda Robiseau, traveling lady of wit and nerve. Tell is carrying thirty pounds of gold. The young man raised in the mountains begins to wonder if their meeting is a coincidence, especially when the woman convinces him to guide her across the desert to Los Angeles. Tell knows a lot about the desert, but a woman can make him forget what he knows. The trail is strewn with bad men and natural obstacles. One of the men he must face is Nolan Sackett, one of the so-called outlaw Sacketts, a descendant of Yance who settled in the Clinch Mountains. Sackett must meet Sackett. Time period: 1875.