"After Buster Hogue is shot at the annual town picnic, plenty of motives appear, but no clues point to the sniper. A lot of people had reason to dislike Hogue or even to wish him dead because of personal and unhappy experience; but grudges don't count in the absence of evidence. Chick Charleston, the small-town sheriff, has had no experience with this kind of case, the county not having been inclined to homicidal endeavors. Neither has his county...

In the midst of the tension and threatened violence of the conflict between ranchers and strip-miners, the sheriff of a small town in Montana tries to solve a baffling murder.