Along with the settling of the South Park Basin, comes the need to build the necessary structures on each of the individual homesteads. But when Becky falls deathly ill, things look bleak for her and her intended, Seth Clarkson.Life in the South Park Basin gets even further complicated when the bank in Fairplay is robbed and the identity of the robbers are known to at least one of the Clarksons.With the singular purpose of the Circle C outfit being to supply eatin' beef to the miners in the gold camps scattered throughout the surrounding mountains, all that gets temporarily set aside when the bank in Fairplay is robbed and the Widow Johnson is cut down in cold blood.As sometimes happens, the murdering thieves make a clean getaway, and life in the basin eventually works its way back to normal.However, barely a few months later, the ill-gotten gains run out and the outlaws realize the need for another helping of the easy pickin's they'd enjoyed previously.When one of the Clarkson brothers gets in the way and is taken captive by the fleeing outlaws, his very life hangs in the balance while his brother and the sheriff of Fairplay track him and his captors into the high reaches of the steep and treacherous Hoosier Pass.But what has been overlooked to that point by the two small groups of unsuspecting men, is the outright need and steadfast frontier determination of the brothers' wives to get themselves involved in finding and bringing their husbands home.