In "The Dragon Was a Lady," Faith Thorndike inherits a gold mine and mansion from her father who she hasn't seen for a number of years. She arrives in Goat Springs, on the eastern edge of Death Valley, and finds herself in the midst of turmoil. Lazarus Howe, attorney for the estate, wants to be her champion. He proposes marriage, and Faith, desperate, accepts him. In "Lost Gold" a wagon load of high-grade placer gold was abandoned and hidden in a ca?on in the Superstition Mountains by Mary Thorne's grandfather after an Apache Indian attack. Mary Thorne has a map of the location, but only she knows where the gold was actually hidden in the ca?on. She hires a dangerous gang to help her locate the cache. With problems arising with the group's leader, she has to form alliances with members of the gang, always a dangerous strategy. As they head into the Superstitions, they find that the Apaches know where they are, adding still more tension to the quest.
Todhunter Ballard was a major contributor of hardboiled detective fiction to Black Mask Magazine. Ballard also wrote Western stories in the same style, two of the best of which are collected here for the first time.