In "Lawman's Heart," Larry Traynor is driving a stage when his shotgun guard is killed in a holdup. He's determined to bring the thief to justice when fate intervenes. Joe Palmer in "White-Water Sam" had been a deck hand on the Thomas Drayton before the railroad came. Now the riverboat is permanently moored because her only chance for a future is to get her downstream through impossible rapids. In the title story, partners in a mining claim divide over a woman.