Big-framed, lean-faced Jim Tobey sometimes suspected he was nothing more than a fiddle- footed fool. Like the other boomers, he'd pulled up stakes and headed out California way on the gold trail, yet the yellow dust held no real lure for him. And he was only too glad to give up the search when a gun muzzle in the hands of a pretty girl pointed the way to a more dangerous adventure. That land-hungry lobos should be trying to take possession of the vast Ranch of the Giants was understandable to Jim, and he knew how to take measures to curb them. But he couldn't savvy the hombres' interest in the girl's unusual silver cayuse ring.