A lone robber held up a stage of the Great Western Stage Company outside of Lordsburg and made off with $15,000 in currency. After some discussion Captain Hanson of the Arizona Rangers decides to assign one of his best men, Buck Windsor, to pursue the thief and reclaim the money. It is believed that the bandit came from the Perdition Range country, and this notion is confirmed by Buck Windsor who tracks the man across particularly rough terrain before the trail disappears. The Perdition Range country has been hard hit by a depression in beef prices so that local ranchers find they might drive their cattle to market, but when the cattle get there, they have to be practically given away. Such a depression could conceivably drive even an otherwise honest man to commit robbery. Buck is fortunate to encounter Tick, an Apache Indian who works as an outrider for the great Matador Ranch, the largest cattle-raising outfit in the area. Tick is short for Woodtick, garrapata in Spanish. Apparently not realizing that Buck Windsor is a Ranger, working under cover, Tick proposes that Buck take a job as a rider for the Matador so that Buck can side him in his lonely job of monitoring Matador cattle that wander onto Perdition Range. The two ride to the Matador camp and put the question to Tom Douglas, the Matador range boss. Douglas agrees to the hire. Buck believes the man he is looking for must reside on one of the smaller ranchers on Perdition Range, but what he cannot anticipate is the hostility and suspicion the local ranchers have toward anyone riding for the Matador. That is the situation before the renegades of Perdition Range strike. They, too, are in pursuit of the money from the stage robbery and appear to know who has it--Publisher.