Two drifting cowboys, the lanky and quick-witted Hashknife Hartley and his stocky, sardonic partner Sleepy Stevens, ride into the Lodge-Pole country of Montana looking for work. Turned away from the Half-Moon Ranch, they are directed toward the Tombstone Ranch, a property owned by the cantankerous Amos "Bliz" Skelton and so nicknamed because pranksters once uprooted the markers from the local cemetery and planted them in his front yard. On the road to town they discover a dying ranch hand, Quinin Quinn, shot twice with a rifle. They haul the body to Skelton's ranch, learn he was Skelton's only hired man, and then escort the corpse into Caldwell. In town they encounter a corrupt sheriff named Jake Blue, a sinister saloon owner named Spot Easton, and Doc Clevis, who serves as both physician and coroner. Hashknife and Sleepy irritate Blue and publicly humiliate Easton, knocking him down when he tries to intercept a letter addressed to a broken-down drunk named Lonesome Lee. They read the letter in secret and learn that Lonesome has a daughter named Jane, eighteen years old, who is traveling from Boston to meet her father, believing him to be a prosperous rancher. They discover Easton has been impersonating a foreman and writing to the girl on Lonesome's behalf, planning to intercept her at the railroad terminus in Gunsight for his own purposes. Hashknife and Sleepy ride overnight to Gunsight, neutralize Easton and his hired thug Blondy Hagen by locking them in a grain bin, and bring Jane Lee back safely, leaving her in the protective care of the shrewd and warm-hearted Mrs. Frosty Snow of the Half-Moon Ranch, whose existence is kept secret from Easton. Meanwhile the conspiracy against Skelton deepens. His cattle have been disappearing steadily, Blue attempts to frame him and the two cowboys for the murder of Quinin Quinn using Skelton's own stolen rifle, and repeated rifle shots are fired at the ranch from the hills. When Lonesome Lee, momentarily sober and seeking answers, walks up to the Tombstone Ranch porch, a hidden sniper grazes his skull. Hashknife conceals Lonesome underground, allows the town to believe him dead, and begins assembling the full picture of the scheme against Skelton. The truth emerges that Easton, Blue, and Clevis have been systematically terrorizing Skelton to force a cheap sale of his ranch. The motive is gold: when Easton and Clevis buried a gambler named Faro near the creek at the edge of the local graveyard, they discovered a rich quartz ledge beneath the soil. To prevent anyone else from ever acquiring mineral rights to that ground, they orchestrated the graveyard prank, framed Skelton for desecrating the graves to turn the entire community against him, rustled his cattle by altering his 33 brand into an 88 using a running iron, shot at him repeatedly, and murdered Quinn to further the pressure. Easton had also been systematically destroying Lonesome Lee through alcohol in order to seize control of the neighboring 88 ranch and its range. When Blue organizes a large armed posse to arrest Hashknife, Sleepy, and Skelton on charges of kidnapping and murder, Hashknife bluffs the crowd into stillness by stringing wires across the yard and claiming they are connected to buried dynamite. From the porch, with the crowd held in check, he lays out the entire conspiracy before the assembled cattlemen, naming Easton, Blue, and Clevis as murderers, rustlers, and the true desecrators of the community's graveyard. Blue draws first and is shot down by Hashknife. Clevis charges the porch with a pistol and is killed by Skelton's shotgun. Easton is roped and taken prisoner after a struggle with Sleepy. Hagen's horse bolts and throws him, and he is captured. Dell Blackwood, Easton's foreman, who admits to cattle rustling but took no part in the shootings, is released on Hashknife's word and rides away. Mrs. Snow arrives with Jane Lee in a wagon, and Lonesome, shaken sober by events, is reunited with his daughter. With the villains removed and the truth of the gold deposit established, Skelton insists on dividing the Tombstone Ranch into three equal shares among himself, Hashknife, and Sleepy. The three men, now partners, ride over to the Half-Moon for supper, leaving the tombstoned front yard behind them in the late afternoon quiet.
By W.C. Tuttle · First published 1932 · Genre: Western, Adventure, Historical Fiction