Arizona Argonauts

A band of prospectors and travelers converge on an isolated desert settlement after a shipwreck and sample an astonishing ore, touching off a scramble for mineral rights. Local schemers use dubious mortgages and hurried leases to try to claim the valley while newcomers and allies plot legal and deceptive countermoves to secure titles. Personal tensions, a mysterious Chinese proprietor and his daughter, a cultured stranger and a doctor complicate loyalties, precipitating flight, confrontations, and a sequence of investigations and reconciliations that ultimately untangle competing claims and expose the motives driving greed and opportunism in a lawless frontier setting.