Fifteen years before the story opens, John Marshall, a prosperous cattle raiser, had shot a man. He knows the act justifiable, but because of the political influence of his victim he felt that his only recourse is to flee. Taking his little daughter he hides himself in a fastness of the mountains that constitute part of his great ranch. The only man he trusts in the outside world is "Topaz" Taggart, a political boss and all-around tricky citizen, who really is trying to get Marshall's ranch because of knowledge that on it is buried a fabulous treasure guarded by an aged Yaqui, last of his tribe. "Bud" Hughes, one-time aviator now a tramp, has attached himself to Marshall's hiding place personnel which included also, Miguel, a faithful Mexican. Into the hiding place there drops one day Terrence O'Rourke, a forest ranger with a double mission, who because of a wound, had lost control of his aeroplane. Marshall's daughter, Mary, grown to young womanhood nurses the young man back to health and from then on he becomes her father's and her protector in a long series of disheartening experiences at the hands of Taggart and his tools.