F.R. Buckley

Mary Boyne, who made shirts at four dollars a week, had no place for love in her life - only despair and hate for the son of the man who had plunged her family into deepest distress. Peter Kenwitz loved Mary, but because he was a mathematician and a pessimist by trade, his love was as hopeless as her chance for happiness.

The Bearcat, alias The Singin' Kid, crosses the Rio Grande into Three Pines, singing bloodthirsty verses, but in spite of these, he makes friends with Sheriff Bill Garfield and likewise with Alys May, daughter of cattle rancher John P. May, by saving her from a runaway. As a reward, he gets a job on the ranch and falls in love with Alys, though warned she is engaged to Aitken, her brother's college chum.

Allen Spargo, a mining engineer who is betrothed to Theresa Kane, goes West to make his fortune and is seriously injured in an accident. Kate Leonard, who falls in love with him while nursing him to recovery, jealously intercepts his fiancée's letters and then writes Theresa that Allen is dead.

The story is motivated by a long-standing feud, which comes to a head when each of the warring families tries to adopt an orphan girl who is about to receive a huge inheritance.