A red-haired rider in the Idaho Hoodoos thinks he's found a simple stroke of luck: a half share in a rough little mine that suddenly assays far richer than anyone expects. The strike promises a clean way out of hard country and harder jobs-until the ore begins to leave men uneasy, as if the rock itself carries a faint, distant echo.

Then the attention starts. Smooth buyers offer astonishing prices and ask odd questions about shipping, water, and secrecy. When refusal isn't enough, the pressure turns to theft, kidnapping, and forged messages, and the fight over a mountain claim spills into the salons and barracks of Europe. Pulled far from the range and into a tightening web of spies and politics, one American must keep his nerve, protect the people he cares about, and hold on to what is his-before the world's great powers turn a private struggle into something far larger.