With buzzards circling in the sky, young Tom Garvin hopes his search for the lost cattle of the Bar M Ranch has not ended in vain. It turns out the carrion those birds are after isn t cows but the body of a man hanging from a dying tree with a very mysterious black rope around his neck.
Impressed by the rope, Garvin decides to take it along with the dead man s beautiful horse back to the ranch where he works with John Slocum. And the two of them are about to learn that this is one rope they don t want to be at the end of