Readers with a taste for classic Westerns will appreciate this storys spirited, well-drawn characters and its evocative descriptions of the frontiers natural beauty. Hell-Bent Wade arrives at a Colorado homestead where a young woman is being pressured into matrimony. The plot centers around this young woman, an orphan named Columbine, who is entrapped by her allegiances into considering marriage to the drunkard son of her adopted father. Columbine is torn between her feelings of duty and affection for the old man, who raised her as his own child, and her blossoming love for a young ranch hand, Wilson Moore. Columbines dilemma seems impossible to resolve until tragedy, fate, and the mysterious rider intervene.