Dr. Frank Conroy was a man at the wrong place at the wrong time. As medical officer of the Santa Fe Railroad, Conroy was long accustomed to the West’s wild and perilously colorful ways. But he never figured that one day he’d be the object of a murder attempt and in line for still another. Nor did he suspect that a young girl’s “accident” would trigger the unlikely turn of events that suddenly placed him in the hands of the notorious Haskell gang deep in the heart of the Mojave Desert, an expendable pawn in a complicated ransom plot — with a price on his head!
He had been on a routine medical inspection of a line camp when the Haskell gang had kidnaped Ellen Sloan, the daughter of one of the richest men of the West. A bullet meant for Conroy had hit Ellen, and Doc Conroy was blamed for Ellen’s kidnaping by her powerful and influential father.
Frank Conroy had saved many mens lives in his rich and colorful career, but now, faced with the Haskell gang, Ellen Sloan’s enraged father, and a treacherous stretch of desert reputed to be one of the deadliest in the world, The Devils Playground — it looked as if Frank Conroy had met his match.