Аннотация

The whole town turned out to watch Jeff Danner bring in his prisoners, the two Dooley Brothers, and in all that crowd there wasn't a man who didn't believe that Jeff had killed the other three Dooleys for the $30,000 they had robbed from the Richfield Railroad express car. That Jeff was special agent for the railroad didn't mean a thing to the town.

But Jeff didn't care what people thought. His prisoners had stolen two crates of Winchester rifles from the train and had staged it so that he would follow them, thereby making it clear for their brothers to rob the express car. And because Jeff was off chasing these two, Colonel Richfield, owner of the railroad and the man to whom Jeff owed his life, had gone after the three Dooleys - and been killed.

All Jeff wanted now was to get the Colonel's killer. He told himself that it didn't matter that the Colonel's lovely daughter, Melinda, thought he was a killer and thief. But when she merged her father's railroad with the Great Plains Central line, and the new manager, Tom Wainwright, released the Dooleys, Jeff quit.

He'd had all he could take of railroading. He was through with the railroad - and everyone in town. He couldn't even be sure his fiancee, Lona Swensen, didn't think he was a killer.

To prove his was through, he went partners with Billy McDaniel on the old Jensen wheat ranch - the biggest mistake he could have made. For when it came time to ship their wheat shipment, the other local wheat ranchers fell in with Jeff's plan to ship to Junction City and sell there in order to beat the crooked weigh-in rates of Alec Browder in Richfield.

Only Jeff realized what a chance they were taking. For he knew that Browder, with his crew of hired guns, was going to do everything he could to stop their wheat from getting to the Junction City market.

When the last wagonload had been put aboard the freight, Jeff figured he'd done enough for the suspicious wheat ranchers and now he could take that job offer from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. He took off for Topeka.

The first thing he heard when he got there took his breath away. The wheat train special had disappeared - seemingly gone from the earth! Thirty boxcars loaded with wheat had completely vanished - and he was being blamed for it.

Now he had no choice. He had to go back to Richfield and face a town gone wild, in order to find that missing wheat train. But he had to stay alive to do it.