Ex-gunman Rod Devers has started up a ranch, but small things going wrong on his land make him think someone might be trying to drive him out. In addition, the $2,000 he borrowed to buy his herd is coming due in a few months, and he refuses to marry his fiancée until he’s debt-free. His brother George ramrods the Spade, the biggest ranch in the area owned by Karl Hermann, who is on his way to Spade. The two-bit ranchers are convinced Hermann is coming to grab up all the land, and they organize a group of vigilantes, the 99, to protect themselves. When Rod refuses to join the 99 and accepts his brother’s offer of a temporary job to protect Hermann and his daughter during their visit, the small ranchers turn against him.
Wayne D. Overholser (1906–1996) was an American Western writer from Pomeroy, Washington. He won the 1953 Spur Award for Best Novel for Lawman, written under the pseudonym Lee Leighton, and the 1954 Spur Award for The Violent Land.